
Qass 1 ^'1 
Book Jl 



3 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

PRESEN I tU MY , 



UNITED STATES^GP AMERICA. 

3 , ' oy V~l^ 



SENATE. 



.No. 3. 



EEPOET OF THE COMMISSION 



TO PROCUKE 



MEMORIAL STATUES 



JVTATIOJS^AL STATUAKY HALL AT 
WASHIlSrGTO^. 



r 



s- 



^. 



18 7 6 



BOSTON: 

ALBEET J. WEIGHT, STATE PEINTEE, 

79 Milk Street (corner of Federal^. 

1877. 



F&1 



S3 




n 




ANNE WHITNEY, 
Sculpt irr. 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 



^•' 




JOHN WINTHROr. 



KICllAKU !^. ORKEXOUOH, 

SiMllptDf. 



(Hotninonujcaltl) of i1tossuil)usctts. 



REPORT 



To the Honorable Senate aiid Hotise of Representatives : 

The undersigned, Commissioners to provide for the erection 
of memorial statues of Massachusetts citizens at the National 
Capitol, respectfully submit their first and final Report. 

Upon the completion of the Capitol at Washington, the 
old hall of the House of Representatives was left unappro- 
priated to any specific use ; and Congress, by the Act of July 
2, 1864, set it apart "as ;i National Statuary Hall," author- 
izing the President "to invite each and all the States to 
provide and furnish statues, in marble or bronze, not exceed- 
ing two in number from each State, of deceased persons who 
have been citizens thereof, and illustrious for their historic 
renown or from distinguished civic or military service, such 
as each State shall determine to be worthy of this national 
commemoration." 

In his last inaugural message, January 6, 1865, Governor 
Andrew, passing from topics that were pressing, " at a period 
so stirring to the heart, when every duty is sublime," thus 
commenced the closing passage of his eloquent address : — 

" The old ball of the House of Representatives at Washington, 
with which is associated the fame, the wisdom and the eloquence of 
so many American statesmen, has been set apart by Congress for a 
National Gallery of Statuary-, commemorative of citizens illustrious 
for their historic renown or distinguished civic or military service, 
whose careers on earth have ended. Each State will be invited to 



4 MEMORIAL STATUES. [Jan. 

furnish two statues in marble or bronze. Man}' years will elapse 
before this gallery of historic art will be complete. But there are 
already names, ample in number, belonging to history, and forming 
a part of the renown of our ancient Commonwealth, — venerable 
names of men over whose graves retreating Time has long cast his 
shadow, and of whom such monumental commemoration would be 
worthy and becoming. I respectfully recommend the appointment 
of a commission, to report during the present session a plan of 
cooperation on the part of Massachusetts in this eminently patriotic 
national design." 

In accordance with this recommendation, the governor was 
authorized, by chapter 61 of the Resolves of 1865, to 
appoint three persons to Tje commissioners, who should con- 
sider the provisions of the Act of Congress before referred 
to, and report to the governor such a plan, in compliance 
therewith, as they should deem advisable, "accompanying the 
report of a plan with such suggestions as they deem proper 
in reference to the eras in the history of the Commonwealth 
to be commemorated by the statues which it is proposed to 
erect." 

February 15, 1865, Governor Andrew had sent a special 
message to the Senate, transmitting a communication received 
by him from the Department of State of the United States, 
covering a copy of a letter of Hon. Mr. Morrill of Vermont 
to the President, on the subject of an historical gallery of 
statuary. The message was referred to the Committee on 
Federal Relations, which reported the Resolve above cited. 
May 9, 1865. It will be observed that it directed the com- 
missioners to report a plan to comply with the Act of 
Congress, by erecting statues commemorative of eras in the 
history of the Commonwealth, thus indicating the intent of 
the Legislature that certain epochs should first be determined 
on as worthy of this illustration, and that then the figures 
especially typical of those epochs should be selected for an 
enduring memorial. 

June 23, 1865, Governor Andrew appointed Hon. Messrs. 
John G. Palfrey, Solomon Lincoln, and Richard Frothingham 
commissioners under the Resolve, whose report was trans- 
mitted to the Legislature by Governor Bullock, in a special 
message, February 16, 1866. ) In it he says : — 



1877.] SENATE— No. 3. 5 

" It will be perceived that the learned commissioners, in their 
report, have limited their discussion to the topic of the latter 
portion of the Resolve, and have treated tlie historic periods which 
should be selected for representation in these works of art, selecting 
also the men who may be supposed to have most full}' expressed 
the action and character of those periods. I think it will be 
apparent tliat, for obvious reasons, their treatment of the subject 
could not well have gone be3-ond this limit." 

These " obvious reasons " are explained to be the uncer- 
tainty whether, if Massachusetts were to provide the two 
statues which had been requested, "the example would be 
followed by a considerable number of other States, and thus 
the ultimate completion of the enterprise contidently antici- 
pated." "In the meantime," concludes His Excellency, "the 
report of the commissioners will prove interesting and 
instructive here." 

It could scarcely have been otherwise, considering the high 
character and ability of the commission, and especially the 
learning, candor, and familiarity with the famous worthies of 
Massachusetts, which characterize the historian of New 
England, and the historian of the rise of liberty in the 
republic. The commissioners say ; — 

" The heroic eras in a people's history are those when extraor- 
dinary crises in public affairs have prompted to peculiarly hazard- 
ous and vigorous action. Of these, the history of Massachusetts 
presents four. 1. That of the colonization and settlement. 2. That 
of the revolution of the seventeenth centur}', when the government 
of King .James the vSecond was overturned in the colon}'. 3. That 
of the revolution of the eighteenth centur}', terminating in the 
independence and organized nationality of the United States. 
4. That of the revolution of the nineteenth century, subverting 
the rule of the slave power. 

" The commissioners unanimously regard the first of tlie era-^ 
above designated as unquestionably demanding to be presented by 
Massachusetts for the proposed national couuuemoration." 

They regarded the second era, — the revolution of April, 
1689, — as not exhibiting services and exploits so memorable 
as those of the two later periods, with which it came into 
comparison. The latter period, — the late war for the Union, 



6 MEMOETAL STATUES. [Jan. 

— the commissioners dismiss from their consicleration, because 
"the time has not yet come for commemorating by statues 
the actors in this great drama." For these reasons, the 
commissioners conchided that they were restricted to the era 
of colonization and the era of the American Revolution. 

With respectful mention of the merits and services of 
Carver and Brewster, of Bradford, and Winslow, and Stan- 
dish, who led the planters at Plymouth, the commissioners 
ngree, that "John Winthrop, rather than any other man, 
represents the founders of Massachusetts," and "do not hesi- 
tate to advise that one of the statues to be set up in the 
national hall, shall commemorate the period and services of 
the tirst John Winthrop." 

But, in turning to the era of the Revolution, the commission- 
ers found themselves " confronted with numerous illustrious 
names, each deserving every honor that a grateful posterity 
can bestow." They recite with discriminating eulogy, the 
services of Oxenbridge Thacher, Joseph Warren, Josiah 
Quincy, junior, Jonathan Mayhew, Samuel Cooper, Joseph 
Hawley, Benjamin Franklin, James Bowdoin, Samuel Adams, 
John Hancock and James Otis. But, again avowing their 
" sense of the delicacy of the task of passing a judgment on 
the comparative value of the services of eminent public 
servants," Messrs. Palfrey and Lincoln tind themselves unable 
to pass by, " as of secondary account, the claims" of John 
Adams, — "the only chief magistrate, except the son educated 
by him for greatness, that Massachusetts has yet given to the 
country." They therefore recommend that he be selected as 
the representative of the State in the era of the Revolution. 

In this recommendation, Mr. Frothingham was unable to 
concur, being " constrained to express the conviction that 
history points to Samuel Adams as the representative man of 
Massachusetts at the era of the American Revolution." And 
he accordingly submitted Sanuiel Adams as the proper sub- 
ject for the other statue. 

As was apparently anticipated by Governor Bullock, no 
action was taken upon this report for some years. 

In the meantime, several of the older States placed, or took 
steps to place, statues in the Memorial Hall. New York was 
represented by Alexander Hamilton and Governor George 



1877.] SENATE— No. 3. 7 

Clinton ; Connecticut erected statues of Jonatlian Trumbull 
and Koger Sherman ; Rhode Island bore to the Capitol the 
effiffies of Ro<i;er Williams and Nathaniel Greene. These 
proud gifts were received by Congress with the honors due 
to patriotic States and illustrious memories. And, upon 
the presentation, in January, 1872, of the statue of Roger 
Williams, the famous founder of the Providence Plantations, 
Senator Anthony glowingly invokes "Massachusetts, pausing 
in the embarrassment of her riches, looking down the long 
list of her sons who, in arms, in arts, and in letters, in all 
the departments of greatness, have contributed to her glory, 
and with hesitating lingers selects two to represent that glory 
here." 

The old Bay State could no longer delay her choice and 
preparations, when her children and neighbors had accepted 
the invitation of Congress as a precious privilege. At the 
legislative session of 1872, Mr. Frederic W. Lincoln of 
Boston offered an order upon the subject, which was 
referred to the Committee on Federal Relations, from which 
committee Mr. Lincoln made a report, April 17, 1872. 
After a condensed history of the matter, the report recom- 
mends a statue of Governor Winthrop, and a statue of 
Samuel Adams, declaring that "the present seems to be a 
good opportunity to do just but tardy homage to the name of 
this great patriot." And a Resolve to carry out these recom- 
mendations accompanied the report. 

The Legislature readily concurred in the suggestion to 
provide a statue of Samuel Adams ; but the journals of the 
two houses for that session show that there was an irrecon- 
cilable difference of opinion upon the point whether a repre- 
sentative of the colonial period should be taken from the_ 
leaders of the elder colony of Plymouth, or should be the 
first governor of the Massachusetts, into which, more power- 
ful, prosperous and extensive, the colony of Plymouth Avas 
merged by the charter of William and Mary, after seventy- 
two years of separate existence. The difficulty was finally 
referred for adjustment to the undersigned, created a com- 
mission by chapter 64 of the Resolves of 1872, which, in the 
first Resolve, provided — 



8 MEMORIAL STATUES. [Jan. 

" That His Excellency William B. "Washburn, Honorable Horace 
H. Coolidge, the President of the Senate, Honorable John E. 
Sanford, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, with two 
members from each branch of the Legislature, to be selected by the 
presiding officers [George F. Richardson and Erastus P. Carpenter, 
of the Senate ; Frederic W. Lincoln and John B. D. Cogswell, of 
the House], be appointed a commission to procure from Massa- 
chusetts artists two statues in marble or bronze, to be erected in 
the Capitol at Washington, as the contribution of this Common- 
wealth to the National Galler}'. 

" Resolved, That the commission procure, in the manner before 
provided, a statue of Samuel Adams, and a statue of either John 
Winthrop, John Carver, William Bradford, William Brewster, 
Miles Standish, or Edward Winslow, as may seem to them expe- 
dient, as fitting representatives of the colonial and revolutionary 
periods. 

" Resolved, That the sum of thirty thousand dollars be placed at 
the disposal of the commission, and that His Excellency the 
governor be authorized to draw, from time to time, such amounts 
as may be required to defray the cost of the statues and other 
necessary expenses." 

And that amount was appropriated by chapter 360 of the 
Acts of 1872, and the appropriation was successively renewed 
in Acts of 1874, chapter 319 ; 1876, chapter 9. 

The Commission was, by the Resolve, directed to procure a 
statue of Samuel Adams ; and, upon its organization, a majority 
decided to procure a statue of John Winthrop. The Com- 
mission entered promptly upon its work, but was delayed by 
the time consumed in preparing models. It was directed by 
the law to procure these works of Massachusetts artists, and 
found in this injunction no difficulty. Three models for the 
statue of Adams were submitted to the Commission, which 
contracted with Miss Anne Whitney for the work. A contract 
was made with Richard S. Greenough to furnish the statue of 
Winthrop. The contracts were executed in duplicate, and 
the originals, in the possession of the Commission, have been 
deposited in the office of thpi state treasurer for inspection 
and preservation. The price of the Adams statue was 

1,500 in currency ; that of the Winthrop statue was 

),000 in gold. The Commission believe the price paid to 
have been a fair one, having taken some pains to inform 



1877.] SENATE— No. 3. 9 

themselves as to the amounts paid on similar commissions. 
These sums inclutled suitable pedestals, furnished by the 
artists, and the cost of transportation to this country. 

It had been the ho[)e of both artists to carve these statues 
in America, of Vermont marble, but they were unable to 
obtain suitable blocks, and reluctantly repaired to Italy, 
where the statues were cut. This necessity, however, 
occasioned no additional expense to the Commonwealth, 
except to protect its insurable interest whilst in process of 
transportation across seas. After their delivery, both statues 
were kept carefully insured until finally placed upon their 
pedestals in the Memorial Hall at the Capitol. 

The statues were both delivered in Boston, and exhibited 
for a brief period in the vestibule of the Boston Athenaeum, 
through the great courtesy of the proprietors, extended by 
the appropriate committee. It was thought proper that the 
Legislature and the people of Massachusetts should have 
ample opportunity of inspection, and that the Commission 
should have the benefit of public criticism before acceptance. 

It is proper to mention that both statues were cut from 
blocks of the purest marble, and that no difficulty whatever 
has arisen with either artist, their engagements having been 
fulfilled with scrupulous fidelity. 

The statues were unpacked in Boston, repacked for ship- 
ment to Washington, and there set up in Statuary Hall, 
under the direction of the Commission, and without the 
slightest injury. But the Commissioners felt themselves 
constrained to decline urgent applications to permit their 
exhibition at the Centennial Exposition, from fear of harm, 
the added expense of insurance, and as conceiving themselves 
devoid of authority. 

The Winthrop statue having been first contracted for, was 
first delivered, and was received in Boston in February, 
1876. Mr. Lincoln, of the Commission, accompanied it to 
its destination. It had been supposed that this statue would 
then be presented to Congress for the nation, but it was pre- 
ferred by the Massachusetts delegation that the formalities 
should be deferred until the Adams statue also was at hand. 
The latter was delivered in Boston in elune, 1876, and 
Messrs. Lincoln and Cogswell repaired to AYashingtou early 
2 



10 MEMORIAL STATUES. [Jan. 

in July, to receive it there and arrange for the presentation of 
both. It will be observed, however, by the accompanying 
correspondence, that the condition of the public business was 
such that the presentation was again necessarily postponed 
until the commencement of the December session, now near 
at hand. 

The Commission considers itself now discharged of its 
trust, having placed the statues in position at the Capitol, 
ready for that formal offering to the nation which propriety 
and customary etiquette require from the accredited repre- 
sentatives of Massachusetts, and of which they will, no 
doubt, so acquit themselves as to gratify the Legislature and 
their constituency, the people, who are the donors. 

Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 

State HorsE, Boston, July 10, 1876. 

To the Honorable Senators and Representatives of Massachusetts in the National 

Congress : 

The undersigned, under the provisions of chapter G4 of the 
Resolves passed by the General Court in the year 1872, were 
appointed a Commission to procure from Massachusetts artists two 
statues in marble or bronze to be erected in the Capitol at Wj: jh- 
ington, as the contribution of this Commonwealth to the National 
Statuary Hall, in response to the invitation by Congress in the Act 
approved July 2, 1864. 

The Commission was directed to procure, in the manner before 
provided, a statue of Samuel Adams, and a statue of either John 
Winthrop, John Carver, William Bradford, William Brewster, Miles 
Standish, or Edward Winslow, as might seem to them expedient, as 
fitting representatives of the colonial and revolutionary periods. 

Under the direction of this Resolve, the Commissioners con- 
tracted with Anne , Whitney- for a statue of Samuel Adams, and by 
virtue of the discretion vested in them, they procured from Richard 
S. Greenough a statue of John Winthrop, first governor of the 
Massachusetts Colony, Both the artists were born in Massachu- 
setts, and both statues are in marble. 

Having been received and accepted, the Commission has caused 
the statues to be placed in the Statuary Hall at the Capitol, ready 
for presentation to the nation. The Commission congratulate them- 
selves that they are able to present the contribution of Massachu- 
setts in the centennial year of the events with which the fame of 
Adams is so inseparablj^ connected, and which were the natural and 



1877.] SENATE— No. 3. 11 

glorious fruitage of the labors, sacrifice, and doctrines of Winthrop 
and his contemporaries of the IMyniouth and the Massaciuisetts 
colonies. 

Having progressed tluis far in the discharge pf the dnty imposed 
upon us by the Commonwealth, we respectfully request you, its 
representatives in the National Congress, to call to the attention of 
that body the response of this State to its gracious invitation, in 
such time and manner and with such formality, as usage and pro- 
priety may seem to you to require, and your own good taste and 
judgment may commend. And we subscribe ourselves, ver}- respect- 
fully and trul}', 3'our obedient servants, 

W. B. Washburn. 
Horace H, Coolidge. 
JouN E. San FORD. 
George F. Richardson. 
Erastus p. Carpenter. 
Frederic W. Lincoln. 
John B. D. Cogsweix. 

Washington, July 17, 1870. 
Gentlemen : — We have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of 
j-our communication, requesting us to present to the Congress of 
the United States the statues of John Winthrop and Samuel Adams, 
the contribution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to the 
National Statuary Hall in the Capitol. It is with great satisfac- 
tion we accept the trust imposed upon us, and we tender you the 
assurance that we shall perform cheerfuUj- the dut}' with which we 
have been charged. The end of the present session of Congress is 
so near, and the business pending is so urgent, that we venture to 
postpone the presentation of the statues until the commencement of 
the next session. 

With .great respect, we remain, your most obedient servants, 

George. S. Boutwell. 

H. L. Dawes. 

J. K. Tarbox. 

N. P. Banks. 

Henry L. Pierce. 

Wm. W. Crapo. 

B. W. Harris. 

Charles P. Thompson. 

W. W. Warren. 

To the Hon. W. B. Washburn, Horace H. Cooliugk, John E. Sanford, 
George F. Richardson, Erastus P. Carpenter, Frederic W. Lincoln, 
John B. D. Cogswell. 



12 MEMORIAL STATUES. [Jan. 

The other members of the delegation were temporarily 
absent from Washington. 

The Commission has caused photographs of the statues to 
be taken, copies of which have been placed in the executive 
chambers at the state house. 

All bills contracted by the Commission, including cost of 
statues, insurance, freight, lal)or, clerical services, draperies, 
travelling and incidental expenses, have been audited and 
paid. Of the original appropriation of $30,000, there remains 
unexpended a balance of §5,570.02, which, by the provisions 
of law, at the close of the year will lapse into the general 
funds of the state treasury. 

The Commission apprehend they will be excused for adding 
that they believe they have executed the task imposed upon 
them by the Legislature of 1872 with a successful result. 
Not assuming to be themselves possessed of taste or knowl- 
edge in art, they are gratified at being able to report that 
these statues are highly commended by such as are acknowl- 
edged to be good judges of works of this character. The 
statues presented to Memorial Hall l)y the States, with per- 
haps a single exception, are the best in Washington ; and 
among them, the offerings of Massachusetts, it may safely be 
said, are conspicuous for excellence. Through the kindness 
of Mr. Clark, the Superintendent of the National Capitol, 
the}' are admirably placed, and attract universal attention. 
The Commissioners who, on one of the most torrid days of 
the last sultry tluly, superintended the placing upon its 
pedestal, and the imveiling, of Miss Whitney's statue of 
Samuel Adams, could but be intensely gratified \\hen the 
marble portraiture of the noble patriot was greeted with 
spontaneous cheers from the large gathering of intelligent 
spectators. We hazard little in declaring that, by the public 
and the press, it was pronounced a most vigorous and elfective 
portrait statue. 

The particular event which the artist has chosen to depict, 
as strikingly representative of the character of Sam Adams, 
is the last of the interviews which, at the head of the Boston 
town committee, he had with Governor Hutchinson in the 
council chamber of the old State House, on Tuesday, March 
6, 1772, the day after the "Boston Massacre," to demand 



1877.] SENATE— No. 3. 13 

the immediate removal of the troops to the Castle. John 
Adams, in his old age, wrote a most vivid description of those 
interviews. The same evasive answer wms returned, as before, 
when Samuel Adams, rising to his full height and majesty, 
his frame quivering, yet steeled, with emotion, pointing at 
Hutchinson a tinger that trembled with the very intensity of 
passion, said: "If you have the power to remove one regi- 
ment, you have the power to remove both. It is at your 
peril, if you refuse. The meeting is composed of three thou- 
sand people. They are becoming impatient. A thousand 
men are already arrived from the neighborhood, and the 
whole country is in motion. Night is approaching. An 
immediate answer is expected. Both regiments or none." 
The artist has selected the moment when Adams ceased to 
speak, and, with folded arms, defiantly awaits the answer. 
But Hutchinson was cowed. After a moment's hurried con- 
sultation with Colonel Dalrymple, the commander of the 
troops, he announced that the people's wish should be com- 
plied with, and Adams and his colleagues returned in triumph 
to the Old South. 

The departure of the troops commenced next morning, and 
on Friday not a red-coat remained to insult the Bostonians by 
his hated presence. But Lord North always afterwards con- 
temptuously styled these " Sam Adams' regiments." 

John AYinthrop is a favorite subject of our accomplished 
artist, Richard S. Greenough. Many years ago he sculptured 
the statue of Governor Winthrop in the chapel at Mount 
Aul)urn, where the earnest Puritan is represented in a sitting 
posture, with a volume upon his knees, apparently the Holy 
Scriptures, from Avhich he is expounding. He is thus depicted 
as the elder or magistrate. 

The statue of the Capitol pictures him as stepping from 
the ship's plank to the shore of Massachusetts. To his side 
he clasps the Bil)le, which was his chart of life ; in his hand 
he bears the charter of the Bay, with its great seal, still to 
be found in the office of our secretary of state, the most 
precious muniment of the Commonwealth. Here he is the 
governor, the leader of the colony into the desolate land he 
is contemplating, majestic and serene, in the spirit of the 
lofty sentiment, ascribed to his son, soon to follow him to 



14 MEMORIAL STATUES. [Jan.'77. 

America, — "I shall call that my country, where I may most 
glorify God, and enjoy the presence of my dearest friends." 

The Statue Commission, here closing its Report to the Leg- 
islature of 1877, upon the trust committed to it by the Legis- 
lature of 1872, ventures to present its congratulations that 
the grand old Commonwealth is represented in the Statuary 
Hall of the Republic by two so every way worthy of immortal 
honor as Winthrop, the founder, "a discreet and sober man, 
giving good example to all the planters, wearing plain 
apparel, ruling with much mildness, strict in the execution of 
justice," a lover of that " kind of liberty wherewith Christ has 
made us free," or as Adams, inheritor of the faith and spirit 
of the Puritans, nobler than any Roman of them all, despis- 
ing luxury, yet a ruler of the rich, whose whole life is opu- 
lent of instruction and rebuke to the public men of our times, 
the pilot of the Revolution, who cherished civic liberty with 
an intense yet guarded love. On the 4th of July, 1795, as 
governor, it was his great privilege to lay the corner-stone of 
the state house in which the Legislature is convened. Perhaps 
no other man had done so much to make that day memorable 
and this edifice possible ! 

W. B. WASHBURN. 
HORACE H. COOLIDGE. 
JOHN E. SANFORD. 
GEORGE F. RICHARDSON. 
E. P. CARPENTER, 
FREDERIC W. LINCOLN. 
JOHN B. D. COGSWELL. 



Boston, November 21, 1876. 




MASSACHUSETTS STATUES 

CAPITOIj, 




N MEMORIAL HALL. 

WASHINGTON. 



appe:rdix. 



PROCEEDmGS IN THE COIS'GRESS OF 
THE UNITED STATES, 

ON THE PEESENTATION OF THE MEMORIAL STATUES OF JOHN 

WINTHEOP AND SAMUEL ADAMS, CONTRIBUTED TO 

THE NATIONAL STATUARY HALL BY THE 

COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS, 

December 19, 1876. 



SENATE 



Remarks of Hon. George S. Boutwell, of Massachusetts. 

Mr. Boutwell. Mr. President, I ask the attention of the Senate 
to the statues that have been contributed by the State of Massa- 
chusetts to the old hall of the House of Representatives. 

Speaking for my colleague as well as for myself, in behalf of the 
Common-wealth of Massachusetts, and by the authority of its com- 
missioners, we now present to the Senate and to the country the 
statue of John Winthrop, the father, founder, and first governor of 
the Puritan Colony of Massachusetts ; and the statue of Samuel 
Adams, the earnest advocate, the most logical exponent and de- 
fender of the principles of the American Revolution. 

The history of Massachusetts begins with the landing of the Pil- 
grims at Pl3'mouth in the 3'ear 1620, and gathering as in one view all 
those who in the long period of two and a half centuries have con- 
tributed to the prosperity, asserted the liberties, defended the rights, 
supported the principles, advanced the honor, or extended the re- 
nown of that ancient Commonwealth, John Winthrop and Samuel 
Adams have been selected as most worthy of place in the illustrious 
group now assembling in the old hall of the House of Representa- 
tives of the United States. 

The first choice was made from the men of the colonial period of 
our history, and the second from the men of the revolutionary era. 

In the selection of a person to represent the colonial period there 
was a difference of opinion between the descendants of the Pilgrims 
and the descendants of the Puritans ; but when the concession was 
made to the Massachusetts Colony there was no diflference as to the 
person entitled to the high distinction of the first choice, and John 
Winthrop stands as the representative not only of colonial Puritan 
Massachusetts, but in his principles, ideas, and purposes in govern- 
ment, he stands as the representative of the Commonwealth of 
Massachusetts as it has been, as it is, and as it ever must continue 
to be. 

The Pilgrims came to Plymouth to secure and enjoy religious free- 
3 



18 MEMORIAL STATUES. [Jan. 

dom ; the Puritans came to Salem and Boston to found a Christian 
commonwealth and to extend a Christian civilization. 

The Pilgrims had a higher idea of the right and dignity of man ; 
the Puritans had a broader view of the power of Christianity in the 
public affairs and concerns of mankind. The success of the Pilgrims 
has been full and complete, not only within the little colony which 
they founded at Plymouth, but for all the English-speaking States of 
America. 

As religious liberty is the basis of the higher and purer foims of 
Christian civilization, the Puritans were compelled, finally, to accept 
the leading idea of the Pilgrims as a part of their public policy, and 
essential to their undertaking. Thus the principles of the Pilgrims 
and the purposes of the Puritans were blended into a public policy 
of religious and political freedom and equality, destined to be as 
extensive as the civilization and as enduring as the institutions of 
this continent. 

In 1G30, the Puritans in England were a class, but not a sect. 
They sought a better life, but they did not demand unity of opinion 
in religious affairs. Generally, they condemned the practices and 
ceremonies of the Church of England, but many of them accepted 
its creed and participated in its sacraments. 

Winthrop and his associates in their letter of farewell say we 
" esteem it our honor to call the Church of England, from whence 
we rise, our dear mother, . . . ever acknowledging that such 
hope and faith as we have obtained in the common salvation we 
have received in her bosom." 

In 1630, the Puritans were a large minority, if they did not consti- 
tute a majority, of the people of England ; but they had not then 
sought power nor agreed upon a public policy. In 1640, ten j-ears 
after Winthrop's departure, the great contest between the church 
and the Puritans, the king and the people, became active and the 
peril imminent. 

The people protested against the Catholic and against the English 
Church. Fifteen thousand of the inhabitants of London and seven 
hundred clergymen of the Established Church asked that the powers 
of the bishops and the character of the ceremonies might be radically 
changed. These concessions were made in form and to some extent 
in fact. 

Political changes in the nature of revolution followed. Strafford 
was executed, the court of high commission was broken up, the Star 
Chamber was abolished, the judicial department was separated from 
the Crown, taxation by the king was relinquished, all ending in the 
trial and execution of Charles I. 

The reign of English Puritanism was brief ; but brief as was its 



1877.] SENATE— No. 3. 19 

career and sudden as was its fall, it left traces of its inflnence and 
the footmarks of its power, not onl}' in England, but in France, 
Germany, Switzerland, Spain, and the Low Countries, in the West 
Indies and the colonies on the continent of America. 

The administration of Cromwell forms the most brilliant epoch in 
British history. He advanced the power and elevated the name of 
his country wherever it was known. His qualities as a statesman, 
soldier, and diplomatist were respected or feared in Western Europe 
and in the European settlements of America. His policy, compared 
with that of the past, was liberal and wise. He broke at once from 
the leading-strings of kingcraft and monopoly and put the govern- 
ment of England upon a more liberal policy, and prepared the 
people to receive more liberal ideas. But twenty years spent in 
strife, in civil war, in the discussions of questions of policy, foreign 
and domestic, had robbed Puritanism of its power as the advocate of 
a better religion. 

Cromwell left England greater than he found it, and the England 
of to-day owes much to his administration ; but the influence of the 
Puritanism of the seventeenth centur}' is no longer visible in the 
politics or civilization of that country. Its moral power was de- 
stroyed in the effort to establish its authority by force. 

In the little colony of Massachusetts its authority was not ques- 
tioned seriously, either in the church or the state ; and never on this 
continent did Puritanism seek to propagate its opinions or gain power 
by arms. In one particular the Puritans have been misunderstood. 

The}' accepted the trutli that there might be a state without a king 
or a bishop, but they did not realize the kindred truth that there 
might be a state without a church and a creed. They did not deny 
the right of private judgment in religious matters, but in their 
system of government the state and the church were one, and what- 
ever disturbed the peace of the church in their view, also endan- 
gered the existence of the state. If the otherwise fair fame of the 
Massachusetts Puritans suffers from the charge of persecution, it is 
to be said in palliation, if not in justification, of their conduct, that 
it was not their purpose to compel others to conform to their opin- 
ions, but to save their state from the dangers to which they thought 
it exposed. 

Of Winthrop even more might be said. In 1642, and in his 
capacity as governor of the colony, he received with kindness and 
gave aid and comfort to one La Tour, a Roman Catholic, who arrived 
at Boston from Rochelle, in France. His conduct was the occasion 
of severe criticism, but in his defence he says, " If there were not 
other sins which God may have a controversy with us for, I should 
little fear any harm from this." 



20 MEMORIAL STATUES. [Jan. 

But it can with truth be said of the Puritan colony and of its ad- 
ministration, that the public-school system, established in 1642, is 
based upon the distinct assertion of the right of private judgment in 
religious matters. If we consider the public school as the only con- 
tribution made by the Puritans, it is in the fact and in the ideas 
which it embraces, the most important contribution to the human 
race ever made by any set or body of men. It is, at once and always, 
better security than can be otherwise obtained for freedom of opinion 
in all things, for equality of rights in all the relations of life, for the 
diffusion of the spirit of justice, and a capacity for right-doing with- 
out the intervention of law, and at last for governments of the 
people, by the people, and for the people. 

I cannot doubt that John Winthrop is the most important figure 
in American colonial history. His fortune in England was ample to 
supply the wants and to support the house of a country gentleman. 
He was in the practice and in the enjoyment of the income of an 
honorable profession. When he identified himself with the colony 
and accepted the office of governor, the most important step, indeed 
the saving step, was taken in support of the enterprise. During the 
winter of 1629-30, one-fifth of the settlers of Salem and Charles- 
town died of exposure and disease. The survivors did not number 
more than three hundred, and these were broken and disheartened, 
and filled with the gravest apprehensions for the future. Several of 
the settlements had been abandoned, and the very existence of the 
colonj^ was in peril. Winthrop brought with him about one thou- 
sand persons, chiefly immigrants from Suffolk Count}^, and the}^ were 
re-enforced in the next twelve months b}^ at least a thousand more. 

These accessions were from the educated, competent, self-sustain- 
ing classes. In six j^ears, and in their capacity as a colony, they 
founded and organized the college at Cambridge. In six years more 
they passed the memorable ordinance establishing a system of uni- 
versal education, which is in itself an effectual refutation of the 
exaggerated eulogy which Buckle has pronounced upon Adam Smith. 
In thirteen years after the arrival of Winthrop, upon his suggestion, 
and largely under his guidance, the colonies of Massachusetts, 
Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven entered into a union for 
mutual protection, which was the type of the confederation and of 
the Union of the American States. 

Winthrop was governor twelve years of the nineteen years of his 
life in the colony, and there appear to have been but slight inter- 
ruptions to his authority in the management of public affairs. His 
religious character and life, his devotion to the interests of the 
colony, his wisdom, his spirit of conciliation, his power of statement, 
and his rare ability in argument, gavQ him the post of leader with- 



1877.] SENATE— No. 3. 21 

out a rival. Indeed, Washington is not more exalted among his 
associates of the revolutionary period than is Winthrop above his 
associates of the colonial. 

The statue of John Winthrop is the contribution of the State of 
Massachusetts. If the influence of his life and opinions and of the 
institutions which he aided in founding were limited to that Com- 
monwealth, it would be an inadequate recognition of the value of his 
example. The little colony which Winthrop founded was the germ 
of a new civilization — a civilization whose chief force hi}- in ideas. 
These ideas have subjugated States, advanced across a continent, 
and are now in actual contact with the older civilization of the 
Asiatic world. In the opinion that this new civilization is an im- 
proved civilization we can assert that other States and even other 
countries are bound with Massachusetts to recognize the services 
and to extend the fame of John Wintlii'op. 



Remarks of Hon. Henry L. Davtes, of Massachusetts. 

Mr. Dawes. Mr. President, there has been no hesitation in the 
dela}' of Massachusetts to respond to the invitation of the nation to 
furnish for the old hall of the House of Representatives, " statues 
of two of her deceased citizens, illustrious for their historic renown 
or distinguished for their civic or military services and most worthy 
of such a national commemoration." ♦ 

It was no easy task for her to so execute this national commission 
as to command the approval of the present, and bear the test of 
future generations, as she turned for that purpose to the long line 
of her illustrious citizens who had closed lives full of immortal 
deeds, and conspicuous in history- for the rarest virtues. 

It was only after much deliberation that she made her selection of 
the first colonial governor of Massachusetts Bay, illustrious both as 
the founder of her civil polity and as the father of a long line of her 
citizens distinguished in each successive generation for eminence in 
talent, virtue, and patriotism, — and still most potential among her 
people for all that is good and worthy of renown, — and with him one, 
primus inter pares among those great leaders who, a century and a 
half after her Puritan governor, guided that colony and her twelve 
sisters through revolution to free and independent States and to 
their position as one among the nations of the earth. Massachusetts 
accordingly' presents this da}- to the nation, to be preserved among 
those of the illustrious dead of her sister States, in that old hall, 
itself immortal, the statues of John Winthrop and Samuel Adams, 
the one first in her colonial, and the other first in her revolutionary 
histor}'. In the discharge of the agreeable duty thus imposed by her 



22 MEMORIAL STATUES. [Jan. 

upon her representatives here, it has fallen to my lot to speak of the 
character of Samuel Adams. 

He was born in Boston on the 16th of September, 1722, O. S., in 
the third generation, in direct line from that John Adams who was 
the great-grandfather of the illustrious patriot and citizen bearing 
the same name, the second President of the United States. In 1736, 
he entered Harvard College, and graduated in regular course in 
1740 ; commenced, but did not pursue, the study of the law, entered 
a counting-house and adopted mercantile business for his pursuit in 
life, from which, however, he was earl}^ turned b}' the stirring events 
destined soon and completely to absorb his whole being and control 
his whole future. He was twice married ; first to Miss Elizabeth 
Checkly, and afterward to Miss Elizabeth Wells. By the former he 
had five children, only one of whom survived him. He died in the 
town of his birth, as he had always lived, in poverty, October 2, 
1803, at the age of eighty-one years. 

Such is the simple and naked record of his birth, life, and death, 
carefully and unostentatiously traced, as is the custom of the New 
England famil3% in the Bible that comes down from father to son, 
preserving between the books of the Old and New Testaments the 
genealogy of the families through which it passes, and whose religious 
character it feeds and supports. 

If from this simple page we turn to the story of his life, it will be 
found to have been one of the most eventful, influential, and positive 
of all the lives of the great men who, under Providence, moulded and 
determined the destiny of this nation, out of small beginnings, 
through feeble instrumentalities, and sometimes by mysterious 
agencies, but at all times by a wisdom and forecast, by a consecra- 
tion and sacrifice little short of superhuman. 

As his life began, so did his work, earlier than that of any of those 
who worked with him to the final consummation. As early as 1743, 
thirty-three years before the Declaration of Independence, and when 
the surface of absolute British rule on this continent had not as yet 
been ruffled by the slightest breeze of popular discontent, on the 
occasion of his master's oration at college, he, then just entering on 
his majority, disturbed the repose of the colonial governor and his 
subservient council by maintaining the thesis that " it is lawful to 
resist the supreme magistrate if the Commonwealth cannot be other- 
wise preserved." Thus early in his own life, and earlier than that 
of the nation he helped to create, for it was before the reign of 
George III. had begun, while Washington and John Adams were 
mere children, and Jefferson was an infant just born, did Samuel 
Adams, with a forecast then all his own, prepare the way for coming 
events whose shadow had not yet appeared. The spirit of the 



1877.] SENATE— No. 3. 23 

Revolution seemed to have been born in hira, and to have beeh 
cherished as a passion from his infancy. Yet he was the most 
patient of men, and awaited its development in others with the 
calmness and faith of a prophet. 

The fire and zeal of the j-outh were held in check by the wisdom 
and prudence of maturity. He took on that day only the first step, 
the sacred right of revolution. But it was a step taken, taken firmly 
and intelligent!}', and thereafter maintained against all comers. 
From that da}' he seems to have consecrated himself to this new 
mission. Scarcely a trace of him remains elsewhere, or in any other 
pursuit. - An ineffectual effort at the bar, an unsuccessful mercantile 
venture, and all the rest of that remarkable life was one of harmonious 
growth and wonderful development of the germ which that day put 
forth its first sign of life. And how marvellously it took root and 
grew in that genial soil ! Though beset on all sides with discourage- 
ment and obstacles, confronted with opposition and loaded with 
obloquy, in perils often from open foes and among false brethren, 
yet his heart never failed him in his work, and never for an instant 
did he give over efl!brt till the final and glorious consummation 
gladdened his eye and ravished his soul. 

Nevertheless, for thirty long years from that day, it was mostly a 
work of preparation, ripening only by slow progress and at an almost 
imperceptible pace into organization, leading ever, though not always 
by the open way, to that actual resistance from which there could be 
no retreat, and whose successful issue he never doubted. These 
were the most remarkable and eventful years of his life, and of the 
life of any American, save Washington, yet born. Indeed, every 
hour of revolutionary research makes it more and more apparent 
that had there been no Samuel Adams, there had been no Washing- 
ton. The Father of the Revolution must needs precede the Father 
of his Country. 

In his work he was not always understood, and was often mis- 
understood ; but he stopped not to explain, and wasted no time or 
strength in vindication. 

Recognized by the unerring instinct of the people, from the moment 
that progress ceased to be silent and unseen and the gathering forces 
assumed order and direction, unappointed and without other com- 
mission than comes in great emergencies from commanding talent, 
unfaltering faith, and cloudless vision, he stood at all times at the 
head of the column pointing the way. He constantly encouraged 
the wavering, urged on the bold, and dispelled the clouds that 
darkened the path, till the surcharged elements of revolution broke 
with the clash of arms on the 19th of April, 1775. 

In the early morning of that day, forewarned, he left, in company 



24 MEMORIAL STATUES. [Jan. 

with John Hancock, his retreat in the town of Lexington as the 
approaching tread of pursuing soldiers was heard in the distance. 
But the hour of resistance had come, and the curtain seemed for a 
moment to lift from the future, and its coming glories to open before 
him. Turning toward the first gray of the morning, as it began to 
light up the eastern sky and direct their unattended footsteps, he 
exclaimed to his companion, " What a glorious morning is this ! " 

In that period of his life which preceded the open outbreak of hos- 
tilities, there can be no doubt, I think, that his most important work 
was done. On this his fame will in the future rest. As its difl3- 
culties and complications, its delicate and doubtful methods, its 
incessant labor and sleepless vigilance, all dominated by one great 
idea, and pressed forward with an unflinching courage, shall come to 
be better known by the student of the causes and instrumentalities 
of which the Revolution was born, so will its lustre constantly 
increase. No adequate sketch even of that work can be attempted 
here. 

Bancroft has truly said that — 

" It is impossible to write the history of the American Revolution with- 
out the character of Samuel Adams, and it is impossible to write the life 
of Samuel Adams without giving a history of the Revolution, for he was 
the father of the Revolution." 

A bare outline would extend these remarks beyond justifiable limit, 
and only a few prominent points can be touched upon in years 
crowded with efforts the most efficient, well directed, and successful 
in awakening, educating, organizing, and inspiring the spirit of the 
Revolution. 

He had scarcely attained his majority and stirred the blood of his 
rulers by the " incipient treason," as it was called, which lurked in 
his last college effort, when, recognizing the press as the most 
essential and efficient instrumentality in any great work dependent 
upon the popular will, he induced a few of his political friends to 
form a club for the special consideration of public aflairs. By 
writing and debate and the establishment of a newspaper he 
endeavored to disseminate among the people the opinions and dis- 
cussions of this club. The " Public Advertiser," whose first number 
was published in Boston, January 1, 1748, thus became the organ 
of the first political association in the colonies for the promulgation 
of those principles which led in after years to the American Revolu- 
tion. 

Samuel Adams was the leader and master-spirit among this bold 
and efficient band of pioneers. He was henceforward a most able polit- 



1877.] SENATE— No. 3. 25 

ical writer, not only for this paper, but in the columns of every other 
paper in New England to which he could gain access, and over a great 
number of diflFerent signatures, that he might not appear to the people 
to be working single-handed, but as one of many able and cogent 
writers upon subjects every hour pushed home to the public conscience 
and judgment with increasing force. His political writings during 
this period would, if it were possible to rescue them from oblivion, 
fill many volumes, and would now be of immense value to the student 
of political history and to a just estimate of the men and measures 
of that epoch. But from various causes the larger part of this 
invaluable treasure has been lost. The great variety of names under 
which they appeared from time to time, and the necessity of con- 
cealment to the personal safety of their author growing more and 
more an object of anxiety and care as troubles thickened, and the 
carelessness of subsequent custodians having no conception of their 
value, have all contributed to the loss of a large part of the writings 
of the ablest political philosopher and statesman of that critical and 
important period. But enough of them have survived in all the 
casualties which their author's fame has encountered in revolutionary 
times to justify the high estimate which the future generations of the 
Republic are sure to put upon them. 

It was the wont of the towns in the Massachusetts Province to 
furnish their representatives to the General Court with written 
instructions, some of which were very elaborate and able. Those 
for the year 1764 from the town of Boston were from the pen of Mr. 
Adams, and were remarkable for the boldness with which new ideas 
were enunciated and the measures suggested for their maintenance. 
Says Mr. Adams : — 

"We, therefore, your constituents, take this opportunity to declare our 
just expectations of you that you will constantly use your power and 
influence in maintaining the invaluable rights and privileges of the 
province of which this town is so great a part, as well as those rights 
which are derived to us by the royal charter as those which, being prior 
to and independent of it, we hold essentially as freeborn subjects of 
Great Britain." 

And the instructions conclude with this, in the light of subsequent 
events, most important suggestion : — 

"As His Majesty's other North American colonies are embarked with 
us in this most important bottom, we further desire you to use your 
endeavors that their weight may be added to that of this province, that, 
by the united application of all who are aggrieved, all may obtain 
redress." 

4 



26 MEMORIAL STATUES. [Jan. 

This was in 1 764, ten years before the first meeting of the colonies 
in Carpenter's Hall in consultation for the common welfare, and is 
believed to be the earliest suggestion of the Union through which all 
our glories have arisen. In the next year he held the General Court 
of the colony up to resolve, " that there are certain essential rights of 
the British constitution of government which are founded in the law 
of God and nature, and are the common rights of mankind " > and 
" that the inhabitants of this province are unalienably entitled to 
these essential rights in common with all men, and that no law of 
society can, consistent with the law of God and nature, divest them 
of these rights." 

These now fundamental doctrines of our polity were then so new 
that they " startled the whole province," and we are told that they 
were received in England as the " ravings of a parcel of wild enthu- 
siasts." 

His pen was constantly active in all the following years, feeding 
the growing popular excitement and leading the public mind and 
heart, unconsciously for a time, perhaps, but steadily and step by 
step, up to the one great act from which there could be no retreat 
with life and honor. 

In 1768, Mr. Adams prepared the celebrated letter of instructions 
from Massachusetts to her agent in London, which was published in 
England as the " true sentiments of America," and also addresses in 
the name of that colony to the ministry and to the friends of America 
in the mother country, and a circular letter to each legislative 
assembly on this continent. Thus all along, and almost in the same 
breath, did he exhort and encourage the people at home, enlighten 
and remonstrate with the Government abroad, and appeal to the 
sister colonies for union and resistance. As early as this year, eight 
years before the final declaration, Mr. Adams became convinced that 
the policy of Great Britain toward the colonies was unalterable, and 
that independence or slavery was the alternative before the Anglo- 
Saxon race on this continent. He did not hesitate himself, nor for a 
moment doubt the choice of the people, so soon as the}^ should see 
clearly as he did that the choice must be made. From that hour, 
more or less openly and positively, but never faltering or retreating, 
he addressed himself to the removal of all doubts and to the clearing 
of the mists from all visions. How far in advance of all others he 
was in this great work, those can judge who remember that John 
Adams and Jefferson for years afterward were laboring for a solution, 
short of separation, of the questions which had arisen between the 
mother country and her colonies ; and Washington himself confessed, 
only two months before the Declaration was adopted, that when he 



1877.] SENATE— No. 3. 27 

took command of the Army, July 2, 1775, he " abhorred the idea of 
independence." 

When the massacre of unarmed citizens in the streets of Boston 
by British troops quartered in town by a cowardh' governor had 
aroused the people to a pitch of excitement bordering on madness, 
and had crowded the Old South Church with an assembly of men 
burning with indignation, Samuel Adams was put at the head of a 
committee to demand again of the governor, in the name of an out- 
raged people, a removal of the troops, which that morning he had 
refused to the town authorities. The meeting in solemn silence 
awaited the result of the mission with intense anxiety. The first 
report that one regiment might be removed had been met by a re- 
sponse from three thousand voices, making the very roof of that 
venerable edifice to shake, that every soldier must depart. 

Mr. Adams, at the head of a new committee, returned to deliver to 
the quaking governor this response. The scene in the council cham- 
ber where he presented to the governor and the commanders of the 
regiments the reply of the meeting is the most impressive scene of 
all the Revolution. The orator, stretching forth his hand, like Paul 
before the trembling Felix, said : — 

" It is the unanimous opinion of the meeting that the reply to the vote of 
the inhabitants in the morning is by no means satisfactory ; nothing less 
will satisfy them than a total and immediate removal of the troops. If 
you have power to remove one regiment, you have power to remove 
both. It is at your peril if you refuse. The meeting is composed of 
three thousand men. A thousand men are already arrived from the 
neighborhood, and the whole counti-y is in motion. Night is approach- 
ing ; an immediate answer is expected. Both regiments or none ! " 

There was no mistaking this determined spirit, and the governor, 
quailing before it, gave the order for the removal of the troops. 

The artist has chosen for reproduction in marble, from among all 
the eventful scenes in the life of this remarkable man, the moment 
of the utterance of these words, the reply to which was awaited by 
Mr. Adams, calmly, with folded arms and with compressed lips and 
firmly knitted brow. And to all coming generations, while one stone 
shall remain upon another around that historic hall, shall this marble 
thus commemorate the courage and heroism to which British au- 
thority first surrendered on this continent. 

But in the years that immediately followed, the great power of 
Mr. Adams as a leader of the people was even more manifest than 
when he appeared, in the morning of that eventful day, control- 
ling the tempest of popular passion in Faneuil Hall and the Old 
South Church, and in the evening confronting and overawing royal 



28 ' MEMORIAL STATUES. [Jan. 

authority and insolence. Great depression followed this intense ex- 
citement. Reaction had set in, and the people had begun to falter, 
Elliott said that "it might be as well not to dispute in such strong 
terms the legal right of Parliament." James Otis, jealous of Sam- 
uel Adams, placed obstacles in his way ; and even John Adams, re- 
tiring from the Colonial Legislature as if to private life, ceased to 
write in the cause, " disgusted with the apparent subsidence of the 
patriotic spirit." The Legislature itself, abandoning the lead of 
Adams, followed that of the doubting and hesitating, and he was 
left in the minority. The loyalists were exultant and the patriots 
disheartened. Then the resolute soul of this great man lifted him 
to the height of the occasion, and with pen and voice and personal 
argument, 'mid obstacles almost insurmountable, he kindled afresh 
the fires of the Revolution, and inspired with new animation and 
hope and courage the desponding spirit of patriotism. 

The people rallied, the dead-point was passed, and the danger was 
escaped. A weak man may float with the current, a stout one only 
can stem it. 

From this time forward he labored incessantly for union, as in one 
common cause, of all who complained of despotic rule ; first for a 
general league of Massachusetts towns, and later, as the cause 
broadened, in an earnest and formal call for a Continental Congress. 

In March, 1774, more than two years before the immortal Dec- 
laration, "in the spirit of prophecy, he wrote to Arthur Lee, in Eng- 
land, that by persistency of the British government in its course 
" will be brought to pass the entire separation and independence of 
the colonies." 

Hutchinson had, nearly a year before, reported him to Lord Dart- 
mouth as the chief incendiary, " determined to get rid of every gov- 
ernor obstructing their course to independency." 

He stands out in the history of the progress of the great struggle, 
not only as among the very earliest in resistance to British aggres- 
sion, but the first to see the futility of all attempts at compromise, 
and to proclaim that the hour for separation had come. He moves 
in the Colonial Legislature the appointment of delegates to a Conti- 
nental Congress in Philadelphia. The royal governor in alarm at- 
tempts to dissolve the assembly, but the door is locked in his face, 
and the key is in the pocket of Mr. Adams. His leadership was as 
well understood in England as at home, and it won for him, with 
Hancock, the immortal distinction of being exempted by name from 
an otherwise general ofier of pardon upon submission to royal 
authority. In all the sessions of the Continental Congress he was, 
as at home in Massachusetts, a leader in counsel and in labor, 
guiding constantly toward and striving ever to reach that day 



1877.] SENATE— No. 3. 29 

when formal and irrevocable proclamation of independence could 
be made. 

He bore a most conspicuous part in the final production and 
adoption of that great instrument, and affixed his name to it as the 
fruition of years of prayer and struggle. 

' He returned to Massachusetts as poor as when contributions from 
unknown sources had furnished the ver}' clothes which he wore in 
Philadelphia. And yet he had scorned the tempter, with the gold 
and the peerage of England in his hand. Incessant devotion to the 
public service and entire consecration of every energy to the 
cause of his countr}- had wrought upon him poverty and need. He 
found himself without even the shelter of a roof he could call his 
own. He struggled with his necessities as best he could, but failed 
in his advanced age to better his fortunes, and continued to the end 
of his life to lack man}' of its comforts. 

But he could not be kept from the service of the people, and 
entered at once into that of his native State, first as president of 
its Senate, and later as its governor for three successive terms, and 
retiring only under the burden and at the command of advancing 
age. 

Mr. Adams was thoroughly democratic in all his instincts and 
faith. His trust in the people was implicit and unbounded. His 
political education and his earh' training as a statesman were, in the 
New England town-meeting, the nearest approach to the ancient 
democracy of an}' modern political institution, and largely through it 
he had seen wrought out the wonders of the Revolution. Therefore, 
that form of government for the future States which was the nearest 
approach to the democratic ideal won his warmest support. He 
accordingly, with others of the same school, shrank from the present 
Constitution, and was opposed to its ratification by Massachusetts as 
too centralizing, and as cramping the powers and functions of the 
States. It was only when that ratification was to be accompanied 
with proposed amendments, giving further guarantees to the liber- 
ties of the people and the powers of the States, that he finally saw 
his way clear to advise its adoption by his native Commonwealth. 

The sincerity and weight of that advice contributed much to the 
ultimate adoption of that instrument, not only by Massachusetts, but 
by a sufficient number of her sister States also to make it ultimately 
the organic law of the land. 

This tendency of his mind led him directly, in the division of the 
country at the end of Washington's administration into parties upon 
the different rules of construction of the Constitution and consequent 
differences in policies of administration, to take the side of Jeffer- 
son against his own kinsman and co-laborer, John Adams. 



30 MEMORIAL STATUES. [Jan. 

Age alone prevented him from becoming a member of Jefferson's 
first cabinet. A temporary estrangement between the two Adamses 
followed this political divergence. It was, however, soon forgotten, 
and the ex-president, surviving his elder compatriot many years, 
never stinted his appreciation and commendation of that undis- 
charged debt this nation owes to him who was leader in all the great 
works of the Revolution. 

Mr. Adams died at the age of eight^'-one, in the fullness of his 
years, and with his work and fame complete. As they pass in re- 
view at the end of the century' which their crowning glor}- ushered 
in, how grandly they stand out, foremost in the front rank ! His 
was a great, and will ever remain an historic character, indissolubly 
linked with every critical, decisive, or glorious step in the progress 
of the Revolution, from the feebleness of its inception to the grand- 
eur of its consummation. All his life-work led him through ways 
hitherto unmarked b}' the footsteps of the statesman and beset with 
perils, and he walked under a burden of responsibilities few if any 
others ever bore. On a single misstep hung the life of the nation ; 
yet, in that wisdom and forecast, that boldness and strength, that 
power at his will alike to inspire and restrain, to stir the popular 
heart and to hold it in check, — essentials all to the success of the 
great work on hand, — he had no equal among the chiefs of the Rev- 
olution. 

Massachusetts has been slow in doing honor to her illustrious son. 
But if she comes late to a public manifestation of her gratitude and 
appreciation, she has chosen well the manner and the occasion. At 
her command, one of her own artists, a lady of rising fame and 
great promise, has with marked success reproduced, in imperishable 
marble, the stately form and commanding features of the great pop- 
ular leader. One hundred years in the history of the Republic he 
contributed so much to create have been numbered, and now his 
native Commonwealth is proud to bear witness at once to his love for 
her and to his greater love for the nation of which she was forever 
to be a part. To-day, in acknowledgment of a debt that can never 
be discharged, and full of pride in the name and fame of Samuel 
Adams, Massachusetts presents his statue to the United States, to 
be kept in perpetual trust as a memorial of her gratitude and a 
pledge of her fidelity to the cause of self-government, to which his 
whole life was consecrated. 

Remarks of Hon. John J. Ingalls, of Kansas. 
Mr. Ingalls. Mr. President, I offer the Resolutions which I 
send to the desk to be read. 
The Resolutions were read, as follows : — 



1877.] SENATE— No. 3. 31 

Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), 1. That 
the statues of John Winthrop and Samuel Adams are accepted in 
the name of the United States, and that the thanks of Congress are given 
to the State of Massachusetts for these memorials of two of her eminent 
citizens whose names are indissolubly associated with the foundation of 
the Republic. 

2. That a copy of these resolutions, engrossed upon parchment and 
duly authenticated, be transmitted to the governor of the State of Massa- 
chusetts. 

Mr. Ingalls. There have been citizens of Massachusetts more 
illustrious for their historic renown, or from distinguished civic and 
military services, than those whom she has chosen as worthy of this 
national commemoration. 

The stranger who pauses before the memorial marbles in future 
years may forget that Sumner and Wilson had so lately departed 
from this chamber that they could not become competitors for admis- 
sion to that silent society of fame ; but he will remember that our 
predecessors had heard the majestic periods of Webster, and the 
gorgeous rhetoric of Choate and Everett ; that upon the floor he 
treads had fallen " the old man eloquent " at the close of a memora- 
ble career. The effigies of the revolutionary heroes around him will 
recall the memory of Hancock, the first signer of the Declaration 
of Independence, and of Warren, who died at Bunker Hill ; while 
against the dark and stormy background of the desolate colonial 
epoch will appear in dim procession the names of Bradford, Wins- 
low and Miles Standish, and he will ask why the old Common- 
wealth turned away from these conspicuous sons, and selected for this 
perpetual, enduring and eternal honor, as the representatives of her 
birth and growth ; the exponents of her purposes and her convic- 
tions ; the apostles of her mission and the prophets of her destiny, 
these less illustrious citizens, — John Winthrop and Samuel Adams. 

The race to which we belong is characterized by resistless energy. 
Descending the slopes of the great central Asiatic plateau in prehis- 
toric times, it has moved westward through Europe by some m3'ste- 
rious impulse, subverting empires, displacing populations, substitut- 
ing languages, imposing new policies and institutions, and giving 
rise to an organic series of nations which have succeeded each other 
like the annual harvests of the earth. It was not till the seven- 
teenth centurj' that this great column, in its prodigious migration, 
reached the shores of America, and found here for the first time in 
its eventful march an unlimited field for unrestricted growth and 
development. To an unoccupied continent, whose river valleys and 
mountain ranges compel national unity, it brought the ideas which 
it has preserved amid all vicissitudes ; ideas whose vigor had sue- 



32 MEMORIAL STATUES. [Jan. 

cessfully resisted the modifications of climate, soil and physical 
conditions ; which had defied repression, and when restrained by 
power too great to be overcome, had preferred deserts and inhospi- 
table solitudes, rather than enervating submission to tyrann3\ Re- 
fusing to adulterate its blood with inferior races, it had not degener- 
ated nor lost its intellectual methods and traditions. It loved to 
make laws and then to render obedience to them. It preferred 
charters to. the sword. It was profoundly religious, and expressed 
its faith in solemnities and creeds. 

Since the Christian era, there have been no great political move- 
ments that have not had their impulse in religious sentiment. The 
idea of a Messiah has preserved the national existence of the Jews 
dui'ing two thousand years of persecution, and of dispersion to the 
uttermost parts of the earth. The dogmas of Mohammed changed 
the destiny of three continents. The protest of Luther against 
Romanism gave direction to the whole current of modern history. 
The Reformation gave the Commonwealth to England and the Puri- 
tan to America. 

Foremost among these pioneers was John Winthrop, a voluntary 
exile, seeking unrestricted liberty of conscience. The little commu- 
nity that gathered around him necessarily assumed political rela- 
tions. The idea of personal freedom and independence permeated 
the fabric and became its controlling impulse. As new colonies 
crossed the sea, the necessities of defence compelled an association 
upon the same principle, and when at last the exactions of England 
grew again to be intolerable, Samuel Adams became one of the 
apostles of the political gospel that all men were created equal. 

In the interval that has followed the final removal of exterior 
obstacles, the ideas of Winthrop and Adams have advanced with 
inexorable vigor, subduing a continent for their habitation, and 
moulding with despotic sovereignty the institutions and laws of forty 
millions of men. It has been said that the Puritans came to Amer- 
ica to worship God according to the dictates of their own con- 
sciences, and to compel ever^'body else to do the same. Whether 
this be true or not, it is certain that the political sj'stem based upon 
the ideas of Winthrop and Adams has been inflexibly aggressive 
and intolerant. During the early years of the Republic it regarded 
with increasing discontent the advance of human slaver3\ Its 
opponents were not warned in time. Democracies are generous, 
but they are jealous. They endure much, but when they are wronged 
they sometimes take more than their due. When dissatisfaction 
assumes the form of resentment, one volume of a nation's history is 
closed and another is opened. 

The irrepressible conflict was proclaimed and the contest waged 



1877.] SENATE— No. 3. 33 

with increasing intensity. Political complications deferred the 
crisis till the issue was precipitated upon the plains of Kansas, and 
John Brown of Osawatomie there raised anew the standard of uni- 
versal freedom, under which he marched to Harper's Ferry, and 
which the nation seized at the gallows of Charlestown and bore in 
triumph to Appomattox Court-house. Whatever may be said of 
the policy or experience of these great movements, history will not 
fail to record that those who inherited the political principles of 
Winthrop and Adams were inexorably logical and courageous, and 
that they shrank from none of the consequences of their convictions. 
They were not only determined to be free themselves, but that all 
who were accessible to their influence should be free also, whether 
they wanted to be or not. They promptly relinquished the rights of 
conquerors, and admitted the vanquished to the full exercise of 
unrestricted citizenship. Following their doctrines to their logical 
conclusions, the}' made citizenship national ; they enfranchised the 
illiterate millions who had been relieved from bondage, and intsusted 
them with the ample prerogatives of freedom. It was a terrible 
experiment. Self-government was never subjected to such a stress 
before. "Whether it will survive the shock remains to be determined. 
The portentous emergency that confronts us to-day is one of its 
inevitable results, and it will require the active cooperation of all 
the higher forces of society to prevent destructive organic changes. 
The tendency of the democratic idea in America has not been 
destructive as in other countries. It has not striven to tear down, 
but to construct and build up ; to repair, and not to waste. It has 
always exhibited an impulse toward the coalition of all its elements. 
Whether in the feeble days of the colonies or the succeeding era of 
our growth and glory, this instinct has always been visible, and it 
has developed into a purpose whose conservative and beneficent 
influence^nnot be overestimated, not only in the present, but in all 
future crises that may threaten the nation. This purpose is national 
unity, the determination that the United States shall be a great con- 
tinental republic, powerful and indissoluble, offering a refuge and 
asylum to all who love libert}^, and sovereign among the nations of the 
world. To realize this sublime conception, incredible sacrifices have 
been made. Personal rights for a long period were cheerfully sur- 
rendered. Armies and navies have been organized for military and 
naval operations commensurable in magnitude with the great fields 
upon which they were conducted. Hundreds of thousands of lives 
have been sacrificed and hundreds of millions of treasure expended 
to establish the national integrity. It is not too much to say that 
this purpose is so deeply imbedded in the convictions of the Ameri- 
can people that it can never be abandoned. It has cost too much 
5 



34 MEMORIAL STATUES. [Jan. 

to be peacefully surrendered. We are now in a transition period. 
We have acquired a habit of subordination, and may confidently 
anticipate the acknowledged supremacy of law. 

In view of these considerations, this interruption of the proceed- 
ings of the Senate in the presence of questions of momentous inter- 
est ceases to be inopportune or formal. It is an admonition of 
profound significance. Massachusetts turns from her warriors, her 
statesmen, her orators, and acknowledges her supreme allegiance to 
those potential ideas which for two hundred and fifty years have 
defined the path of her progress. She announces that against the 
temptations of policy or place or expediency she shall recognize 
morals as an element in politics and the golden rule as a maxim of 
government ; that in the future as in the past she will insist upon 
national integrity, equality before the law, universal education, the 
elevation of the masses, the protection of labor, the promotidn of 
the material interests of the country, and the continued activity of 
those great moral forces which underlie true national grandeur. 

I move the adoption of the Resolutions. 

The Resolutions were adopted unanimously. 



1877.] SENATE— No. 3. 35 



HOUSE OF KEPRESE:NTATiyES. 



Remarks of Hon. George F. Hoar, of Massachusetts. 

Mr. Hoar, I call up the special order fixed for to-day. 
The Speaker. The Resolutions of the Senate will be read. 
The Clerk read as follows : — 

In the Senate of the United States, ) 
December 19, 1876. > 

Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), 1. 
That the statues of John Winthrop and Samuel Adams are accepted in 
the name of the United States, and that the thanks of Congress are given 
to the State of Massachusetts for these memorials of two of her eminent 
citizens whose names are indissolubly associated with the foundation of 
the Republic. 

2. That a copy of these resolutions, engrossed upon parchment and 
duly authenticated, be transmitted to the governor of the State of Massa- 
chusetts. 

Attest: Geo. C. Gorham, 

By W. J. McDonald, 
Chief Clerk. 

Mr. Hoar. Mr. Speaker, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 
in obedience to the invitation of Congress, presents to the United 
States the statues of John Winthrop and Sanjuel Adams, to be 
placed in the old hall of the House of Representatives, and to 
be kept reverently in that beautiful and stately chamber so long 
as its columns shall endure. 

Different kinds of public service, various manifestations of intel- 
lectual and moral greatness, have been held by different nations and 
ages to constitute the chief title to their regard. With all her 
wealth in other departments of glory, England chiefly values the 
men who have done good fighting in her great wars. Marlborough 
and Nelson and Wellington crown the stateliest columns in the 
squares and streets of her chief cities. When we would picture to 
ourselves the republics of Italy, four laurelled heads of famous poets 
stand out upon the canvas. The statue of Erasmus, the great 
scholar of Holland, with a book in his hand, looks down upon the 



36 MEMORIAL STATUES. [Jan. 

busy market-place of Rotterdam. The judgment of mankind has 
probably determined that, through the great jurists of the days of 
the empire, Rome has made her deepest impression on the world. 
The names of great soldiers, founders of nations, jurists, ministers 
of state, men of science, inventors, historians, poets, orators, phi- 
lanthropists, reformers, teachers, are found in turn on the columns 
by which the gratitude of nations seeks to give immortality to their 
benefactors. 

In deciding which of these classes should be represented, or who 
of her children in each is worthiest of this honor, Massachusetts 
has not been driven to choose of her poverty. Is the choice to fall 
upon a soldier? Sturdy Miles Standish, earliest of the famous 
captains of America — "in small room large heart inclosed"; Sir 
William Pepperell, the conqueror of Louisburg, may vie with each 
other for the glory of standing by the ever-youthful and majestic 
figure of Warren. 

Would the reverence of the nation commemorate its founders? 
To the State made up of the blended colonies founded by Endicott 
and Winthrop, and the men who, on board the Mayflower, sighed 
the first written constitution that ever existed among men, more 
than one-third of the people of the United States to-day trace their 
lineage. 

No American State, no civilized nation, has contributed more 
illustrious names to jurisprudence than Parsons and Mason and 
Story and Shaw. 

The long roll of her statesmen begins with those who laid the 
foundation of the little colony deep and strong enough for an 
empire. It will end when the love of liberty dies out from the 
soul of man. Bradford and Carver ; Endicott and Winthrop ; 
Vane, the friend of Milton and counsellor of Cromwell ; Otis and 
Samuel Adams and Quincy and Hawley, the men who conducted on 
the side of the people that great debate by which the Revolution 
was accomplished before the first gun was fired ; John Adams and 
his son, whose biographies almost make up the history of the 
countr}^ for eighty years ; Pickering, who filled in turn every seat 
in the cabinet ; Webster, the greatest teacher of constitutional law, 
save Marshall ; Andrew, the great war governor ; Sumner, the 
echoes of whose voice seem yet audible in the Senate Chamber, by 
no means make up the whole of the familiar catalogue. 

Science will not disdain to look for fitting representatives to the 
State of Bowditch and John Pickering and Wj-man and Peirce, and 
which contains the birthplace of Franklin and the home and grave 
of Agassiz. 

Are we to hold with Franklin that the world owes more to great 



1877.] SENATE— No. 3. 37 

inventors than to all its warriors and statesmen ? The inventor of 
the cotton-gin, who doubled the value of every acre of cotton-pro- 
ducing land in the South ; the inventor of the telegraph, at whose 
funeral obsequies the sorrow of all nations throbbing simultaneously 
around the globe was manifested ; the discoverer of the uses of 
ether in surgery, who has disarmed sickness of half its pain and 
death of half its teiTors, may dispute with each other a palm for 
which there will be no other competitors. 

Among historians the names of Bancroft and Sparks and Motley 
and Prescott and Palfrey and Parkman will endure till the deeds 
they celebrate are forgotten. " Worthy deeds," said John Milton, 
" are not often destitute of worthy relators, as by a certain fate 
great acts and great eloquence have commonly gone hand in hand." 

" Native to famous wits 
And hospitable, in her sweet recess," 

Massachusetts contributes to the list of poets who have delighted 
the world the names of Bryant and Emerson and Whittier and 
Longfellow and Lowell and Holmes. 

Among the foremost of Americans in oratory, that foremost of 
arts, stand Quinc}', the Cicero of the Revolution ; Otis, that " flame 
of fire " ; the persuasive Choate ; the silver-tongued Everett ; the 
majestic Webster. 

Of the great lovers of their race, whose pure fame is gained by 
unselfish devotion of their lives to lessening suflFering or reforming 
vice, Massachusetts has furnished conspicuous examples. Among 
these great benefactors who have now gone to their reward, it is 
hard to determine the palm of excellence. To the labors of Horace 
Mann is due the excellence of the common schools in America, 
without which liberty must perish, despite of constitution or statute. 

If an archangel should come down from heaven among men, I 
cannot conceive that he could give utterance to a loftier virtue or 
clothe his message in more fitting praise than are found in the pure 
eloquence in which Channing arraigned slaver}^, that giant crime of 
all ages, before the bar of public opinion, and held up the selfish 
ambition of Napoleon to the condemnation of mankind. " Never 
before," says the eulogist of Channing, " in the name of humanity 
and freedom, was grand offender arraigned by such a voice. The 
sentence of degradation which Channing has passed, confirmed by 
coming generations, will darken the fame of the warrior more than 
any defeat of his arms or compelled abdication of his power." 

Dr. Howe, whose youthful service in the war for the independence 
of Greece, recalling the stories of knight-errantry, has endeared^his 



38 MEMORIAL STATUES. [Jan. 

name to two hemispheres, is yet better known by what he has done 
for those unfortunate classes of our fellow-men whom God has 
deprived of intellect or of sense. He gave eyes to the fingers of 
the blind, he taught the deaf and dumb articulate speech, waked 
the slumbering intellect in the darkened soul of the idiot, brought 
comfort, quiet, hope, courage, to the wretched cell of the insane. 

To each of these the people of Massachusetts have, in their own 
way, paid their tribute of honor and reverence. The statue of 
Horace Mann stands by the portal of the State House. The muse 
of Whittier and Holmes, the lips of our most distinguished living 
orators, the genius of his gifted wife, have united in a worthy 
memorial of Howe. The stately eloquence of Sumner, in his great 
oration at Cambridge, has built a monument to Channing more 
enduring than marble or granite ; but Channing's published writ- 
ings, eagerly read wherever the English language prevails, are 
better than any monument. 

Yet I believe Channing and Howe and Mann, were they living 
to-day, would themselves yield precedence to the constant and 
courageous heroism of him who said, " I am in earnest ; I will not 
equivocate ; I will not retreat a single inch ; and I will be heard " ; 
whose fame 

" Over his living head, like heaven, is bent 
An early and eternal monument." 

The Act of Congress limits the selection to deceased persons not 
exceeding two in number for each State. ' Massachusetts has chosen 
those who, while they seemed the fittest representatives of what is 
peculiar in her own character and history, have impressed that 
character on important public events which have been benefits to 
the nation at large. 

That peculiarity is what is called Puritanism. To that principle, 
which I will try to define presently, I think it would not be difficult 
to trace nearly everything which Massachusetts has been able to 
achieve in any department of excellence. But it has a direct 
national importance in three conspicuous eras. One of them is too 
recent to allow of dispassionate consideration. The others are the 
eras of the foundation of the State and of the American Revolution. 

Of the first, John Winthrop, twelve times governor of Massa- 
chusetts, from 1630 to 1649, is the best type. Of the second, she 
has selected Samuel Adams, sometimes called ''the last of the 
Puritans," as the representative. 

" The true marshalling," says Lord Bacon, " of the degrees of 
sovereign honor are these : In the first place are conditores imper- 
iorum, founders of states and commonwealths, such as were 



1877.] SENATE— No. 3. 39 

Romulus, Cyrus, Caesar, Ottoman, Ismael." Whatever rank shall 
be assigned to our Commonwealth by history compared with the 
states of Romulus and Cyrus and the rest, the same " degree of 
sovereign honor " must be awarded to the man who founded it as 
compared with those named by Lord Bacon. 

When 3'ou look upon the statue of John Winlhrop, a'ou see the 
foremost man of that little company of Englishmen who abandoned 
wealth, comfort, rank, to found a Christian church and a republican 
state in the wilderness of New England. He was born in Suffolk 
on the twelfth day of January, 1587. He was a gentleman of good 
estate and descent, and of wide and powerful family connection. 
He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, bred to the bar, 
and had a considerable practice as an attorney of the court of wards 
and liveries. A large portion of his private papers and letters to 
his family and friends have been preserved. I know of no other 
man of his time of whose mental and spiritual life, from his child- 
hood up, we have such full particulars. He was a man industrious, 
modest, wise, brave, generous, affectionate, a lover of home, of 
kindred and friends, tolerant, religious, moderate, chaste, temper- 
ate, self-sacrificing. He had studied the laws of England, and 
thought deepl}' and clearly upon the principles of civil liberty. He 
was a member and communicant of the Church of England. From 
his early youth his letters to his family and near friends and num- 
erous private manuscripts, reveal his most secret religious medita- 
tions and aspirations. They breathe a sincere, liberal, catholic 
spirit of love to God and man, uttered in forms in which religious 
men of all denominations could unite. If these simple and eloquent 
utterances were found in a meditation of Pascal or A'Kempis, 
in a confession of Saint Augustine, in a sermon of Jeremy 
Taylor, in a journal of John Wesley, or an essay of Channing, I do 
not think that any disciple of either would deem them out of place. 
His style is simple and serious, rising sometimes to a grave and 
majestic eloquence. There are passages in his letters of exquisite 
beauty, and " in the loftiest strain of religious faith and devotional 
fervor." There was probably no man in England with tastes less 
inclined to the part of an adventurer, and with less personal 
ambition. 

Such, in the year 1629, at the age of forty-three, was this model 
English gentleman, dwelling on his own landed estate, surrounded 
by affluence, engaged in honorable public employments, happy in 
home, friends, honor. He had heard of a rocky and ice-bound 
region, the gloom of whose eternal forests was tenanted by savage 
beasts and men more savage. He had heard of a little company of 
Englishmen who had landed on that coast ten j^ears before, at mid- 



40 MEMORIAL STATUES. [Jan. 

winter, half of whom had perished before spring, " at one time only- 
six or seven having strength enough left to nurse the dying and 
bury the dead," and who for ten years had maintained a precarious 
and doubtful struggle with famine and pestilence and the rigorous 
climate. But what should drive him, of all mankind, to leave the 
delights of rich and luxurious England, to abandon the pleasant 
vales of Suffolk, for the rocks and sands of Massachusetts? 
" Founders of states, such as were Romulus, Cyrus, Caesar, Otto- 
man, Ismael." A founder of states such as these were not was John 
Winthrop. No legions flushed with foreign conquest demanded 
that he should lead them across the Rubicon to found an empire on 
the ruins of his country. No milk of the she-wolf mingling with 
the streams of his blood made him the fit founder of an asylum for 
a clan of banditti. No fanatical passion for conquest, no dream of 
sensual paradise, no restless nomadic habit, disturbed the even 
tenor of his life. But he was one of those men to whose happiness 
civil and religious liberty were absolutely essential. The third 
Parliament of Charles I. had just been dissolved. England was 
entering upon a period of ten j'ears of absolute monarch}', her civil 
and military administration in the hands of Straflbrd, her spiritual 
aflfairs in the hands of Laud. Winthrop agreed in opinion with 
those who were disposed to submit to neither. 

A charter had been earlier obtained. A few colonists had gone 
over to New England and established a government in subordina- 
tion to the company in England. On the 26th day of August, 
1629, Winthrop and eleven others signed an agreement at Cam- 
bridge " to embark for the said plantation, to the end to pass the 
seas (under God's protection) to inhabit and continue in New 
England ; provided always, that the whole government, together 
with the patent for the said plantation, be first by an order of court 
legally transferred and established to remain with us and others 
which shall inhabit upon the said plantation." This condition was 
performed. In October thereafter the record of the company 
recites " the court having received extraordinary great commenda- 
tions of Mr. John Winthrop, both for his integrity and sufficiency, 
as being one every way well fitted and accomplished for the place, 
the said Mr. Winthrop was with a general vote chosen to be gov- 
ernor for the ensuing year." 

It is more than probable that the accession of Winthrop to their 
society was the condition of the whole emigration. It is more than 
probable that the coming over of Winthrop and his fleet of ships 
saved the whole Puritan settlement from being abandoned. It is 
certain that, for the nineteen years for which he was chief director 
of the affairs of the colony, he impressed upon it his own character 



1877.] SENATE— No. 3. 41 

and qualities. He took farewell of England " in a flood of tears." 
He begged his brethren of the English Church for their prayers, 
" which will be a most prosperous gale in our sails." To narrate 
his remaining life would be only to tell again the well-known tale of 
the history of Massachusetts for its first nineteen years. 

The qualities which the greatest rulers of free states have dis- 
played in the most difficult times, were all needed in the governor 
of the infant Commonwealth. No other American so nearly resem- 
bles Washington. "He was, indeed," says the old annalist, "a 
governor who had most exactly studied that book, which, pretending 
to teach politics, did only contain three leaves, and but one word on 
each of those leaves, which word was ' moderation.' " Another 
Puritan writer calls him " that famous pattern of piety and justice." 
He was reproved by the clergy of the colony for his " overmuch 
lenity," in the month Roger Williams was banished. He preserved 
unbroken his friendship with Williams, who wished him to be the 
governor of his own plantation in Rhode Island. He poured out 
his estate in charity, leaving but £100 at his death. He gave his 
last measure of meal to a poor woman when the colony was starv- 
ing, a ship laden with provisions from England arriving just in time 
for their safety. 

When impeached for an act of necessary authority, he took his 
place modestly and meekly at the bar of the court of which he had 
been head, where he defended himself in a discourse defining the 
true nature of civil liberty, which, for grave and majestic elo- 
quence, has been pronounced by high authority " equal to anything 
of antiquity." 

The questions which divided the Roundhead from the Cavalier, 
the Puritan from the High Churchman, are not yet at rest. Until 
they are, men will diflfer in their estimate of the generation to which 
John Winthrop belonged and of the Commonwealth of which he 
was the chief founder. But the concurrent judgment of all lovers 
of America now accepts the estimate which has been eloquently 
expressed b}^ his distinguished biographer and descendant, your 
accomplished predecessor in that chair : " A great example of 
private virtue and public usefulness ; of moderation in counsel and 
energy in action ; of stern self-denial and unsparing self-devotion ; 
of childlike trust in God and implicit faith in the gospel of Christ, 
united with courage enough for conducting a colony across the 
ocean and wisdom enough for building up a state in the wilderness." 

When John Winthrop died, in 1649, the colony of which he had 

been the foremost planter, was firmly established as a Christian 

state. Thirty flourishing towns, in which every freeman had an 

equal vote, were represented in the Legislature. The college, the 

6 



42 MEMORIAL STATUES. [Jan. 

schools, the churches, agriculture, and trade and fisheries were 
prospering. The little Commonwealth did its full share to keep up 
the glorj" of the English flag at Louisburg, at Quebec, at Martinique, 
and the Havana, and many another well-fought field. But the 
people kept a weary lookout for any encroachment by king, Par- 
liament, or governor, on the natural and inalienable rights of Eng- 
lishmen, as declared b}^ their charter. In 1763, the great drama 
was fairly opened, which ended with the separation from England 
and the adoption of the Constitution of the United States. The 
Legislature hesitated a good while whether Samuel Adams or his 
illustrious kinsman, John Adams, should be chosen as the represent- 
ative of the revolutionary age. I think the even-hanging balance 
was inclined at last by the thought of the ample compensations 
which life brought to the latter for his services and sacrifices in his 
country's cause. 

I can conceive of nothing which the human heart can desire in 
satisfaction of a pure ambition which did not fall to the lot of John 
Adams. As was well said by Mr. Webster, " he was attended 
through life by a great and fortunate genius. He had written his 
name where all nations should behold it, and where all time should 
not efface it." He lived to see the independence of his country 
achieved. His was the rare good fortune to take part in a great 
revolution from its beginning to its successful issue. The pro- 
scribed rebel was received by the sovereign who had hated him, as 
the representative of a great and free people. He was deemed by 
his countrymen worthy to be associated with "Washington in the 
inauguration of the Government, and succeeded him in the great 
office of the Presidency. He was the foremost champion of the 
Declaration of Independence on the floor of Congress, and his 
famous prophecy will cause his name to be remembered by his 
countrymen, as its anniversary returns, until time shall be no more. 
He was the chief author of the constitution of his native State. He 
rejoiced in the congenial companionship of one of the most aflec- 
tionate of wives and most intellectual of women. His life ended on 
the spot where it began, at the great age of ninety, in a strong, 
vigorous old age, made happy by private aflfection and public rever- 
ence. By a coincidence almost miraculous, his death took place 
when millions of his countrymen, happy and at peace, under the 
Presidency of his son, were celebrating the great day he had made 
famous. " If the chariot and horses of fire had been vouchsafed to 
him, he could scarcely have had a more splendid translation, or 
departed in a brighter blaze of glory." 

Samuel Adams, on the other hand, lived and died poor. His only 
son preceded him to the grave, leaving none to inherit his name. 



1877.] SENATE— No. 3. 43 

He held no considerable public office, except that of delegate to 
the Continental Congress, until he succeeded Hancock as governor 
in his seventy-second year, when in his own opinion the weight of 
years and infirmities was beginning to unfit him for further service. 

But for more than thirty years, beginning when most of the great 
actors in the Revolution were unborn or were children, he was the 
unquestioned leader of the contest for liberty in Massachusetts. I 
shall not repeat the familiar stor}'. Samuel Adams was, I think, the 
greatest of our American public men in civil life ; greatest, if we 
judge him by the soundness and sureness of his opinions on the 
great questions of his time and of all time ; greatest, as shown by 
the strength of original argument by which he persuaded the people 
to its good ; greatest in the imperial power of personal will by which 
he inspired and compelled and subdued the statesmen of his day 
who were his companions ; greatest in the sublime self-denial which 
contented itself with accomplishing public results without seeking 
personal reward either of fame or office. 

" If there was any Palinurus to the Revolution," said Thomas 
Jefferson, " Samuel Adams was that man." From the day when on 
taking his degrees at Harvard, in 1743, he maintained that it is law- 
ful to resist the supreme magistrate if the commonwealth cannot 
otherwise be preserved, down to the time when the Declaration sev- 
ered the tie between England and the colonies, he conducted the 
great debate of liberty. In the achievement of great revolutions 
which mark and secure the progress of libert}', three kinds of leaders 
are alike indispensable : the philosopher, who establishes great 
principles ; the stateman, who frames great measures, fills great 
executive offices, leads popular and legislative assemblies ; the poli- 
tician, without whose marshalling of political forces civil contests 
must be carried on by the mobs, and not by parties. Adams was 
all three. With clear logic, he derived his great argument from its 
foundations in the immutable laws of ethics and the inalienable 
rights of human nature. With consummate wisdom, he directed all 
the measures of the Massachusetts Assembly, never driven from his 
position or taking a false step. He was the most dexterous poli- 
tician that ever planned an election or managed a caucus. He laid 
down the pen in the midst of a profound treatise, which Locke or 
Hooker might have envied, to mingle with the workmen at the rope- 
walk or the crowd at the street corner to plan the conduct of the 
coming town-meeting. I know no second instance in history where 
these three characters have been so wonderfully combined. Yet, 
what is more wonderful still, Adams was free from the faults which 
commonly beset each. A profound political philosopher, his feet 
always touched the ground. He was never led astray by his theory. 



44 MEMORIAL STATUES. [Jan. 

A statesman, he was without personal ambition. A politician, he 
was without a wile. There is no more hurtful error than the notion 
of our doctrinaires that the function performed in free states by men 
who are termed politicians is not dignified, honorable, serviceable, 
and honest. When wars are brought to successful issue without 
planning the campaigns ; when battles are won without generals, 
disposition of forces, or discipline, good results will come to pass 
under popular governments without politicians. But whether con- 
certing his plans in the caucus or addressing the people in Faneuil 
Hall, which was called his " throne," the absolute truth and simple 
honesty of Samuel Adams were unstained. He would not have 
deceived that people if thereby he could have redeemed a world from 
bondage. 

With unerring wisdom, earlier than any other person in his own 
State, he saw the principles on which the American cause was based, 
and the means by which public opinion should be convinced, com- 
bined and made effective in their support. He saw the power of the 
newspaper when it was almost unused as a political force. He was 
the author of the most important state papers, the instructions of 
the town of Boston to its representatives, of the assembly to its 
agents in England, its answers to the royal governors, wherein the 
natural rights of men, the chartered privileges of the people, and 
the limits of executive and legislative power were established on 
foundations from which they have never been removed. It was 
said of him that he had the eyes of Argus and as many hands as 
Briareus, and in each hand a pen. His style was simple, severe, 
chaste, restrained, as became the great themes he had to discuss. 
But it conveyed his weighty meaning alike to the understanding of 
the people and the apprehension of his antagonis'ts. " Every dip 
of his pen," said Bernard, " stung like a horned snake." 

He always put other men forward when glory was to be gained or 
desirable public ofiBces to be filled — never when responsibility or peril 
was to be encountered. Behind the conspicuous presence of Hancock, 
the brilliant rhetoric of Otis, the British governors felt and dreaded 
the iron hand of Adams. With his own lips he gave the signal for 
the movement of the tea party. With his own hand he carried to 
the council the impeachment of Oliver. On the day of the Boston 
massacre, Adams intrusted no other messenger with the demand for 
the removal of the regiments. Yonder statue represents the great 
popular leader and chieftain, king of men, the genius of American 
liberty speaking through his lips, as he stood in the presence of the 
royalty of England represented by Governor Hutchinson : "If you 
have the power to remove one regiment you have power to remove 
both. £It is at your peril if you refuse. Night is approaching ; an 



1877.] SENATE— No. 3. 45 

itnmediate answer is expected. Both regiments or none ! " " It was 
then," said Adams afterward, " if fancy deceived me not, that I 
observed his knees to tremble. I thought I saw his face grow pale, 
and I enjoyed the sight." 

He was almost the earliest of American advocates, I think in 
nearly every case the earliest, of doctrines which, when he first 
uttered them, were deemed paradoxes or Utopian dreams, but to-day 
are the accepted maxims of constitutional liberty. Among these 
he maintained that the right to life, liberty, and property are 
essential and inalienable rights of human nature ; 

That Magna Charta is irrepealable b}' Parliament (citing in sup- 
port of this view the curse pronounced by the church in presence of 
King Henry III. and the estates of the realm upon all who should 
make statutes or observe them contrary to it) ; 

That representation of America in Parliament was impossible ; 

That king or Parliament, together or separately, had no right to 
affect the liberties of the colonies ; 

That, therefore. Parliament had no power to legislate for the colo- 
nies in any case ; 

That the union of the several powers of government in one person 
is dangerous to liberty ; 

That the Crown had no right to grant salaries to colonial judges 
or governors ; 

». That kings and governors may be guilty of treason and rebellion, 
and have in general been more guilty of them than their subjects ; 

That the welfare and safety of the people are paramount to all 
other law ; 

That governments are founded on equal rights ; 

That the people have natural right to change a bad constitution 
whenever it is in their power ; 

That American manufactures should be a constant theme. 

" He was never weary," says his biographer, " of promoting a 
widely diffused common-school system, whereb}- the poorest might 
educate his children to a point where talent might win its way on 
equal terms with their more wealthy neighbors. This was demo- 
cratic doctrine in its purest form, and, as Mr. Adams conceived it, 
was the principle on which the Revolution had been accomplished." 

The instinct of Hutchinson did not err when it pronounced him 
the first man in America who advocated independence. 

The first public denial of the right of Parliament to tax America, 
the first public opposition to the Stamp Act, the first suggestion of a 
general union of the colonies, are in the instruction of the town of 
Boston to its representatives, adopted in 1764 and drafted by Samuel 
Adams. This preceded by twelve months Patrick Henry's resolu- 



46 MEMORIAL STATUES. [Jan. 

tion in the Virginia House of Burgesses of May, 1765. In that life 
of incessant activity, constantly engaged in debate in the assembly, 
in controversy in the press, a writer of such originality that the doc- 
trines must have seemed to the men of his day paradoxes, having to 
meet a powerful and unscrupulous government by combining popular 
forces, no instance can be found of his advancing a doctrine which 
is not to-day accepted, or of his proposing a measure from which he 
was compelled to recede. 

It has been charged that the " glittering generalities " of the Decla- 
ration of Independence were the result of the French tastes of JeflPer- 
son, and were acquiesced in — not believed in — by his associates in 
the Continental Congress to conciliate his supposed influence in 
Virginia. The criticism has been made by Mazzini, I think repeated 
b}' Bismarck, that it asserts that the security of rights, not the per- 
formance of duties, is the object of the state. The statement and 
the criticism are alike unfounded. Every sentiment of the Decla- 
ration can be found anticipated in the writings of Samuel Adams. 
It contains the matured opinions of the most religious race of men 
that ever lived at the most religious period of their history. The 
men who believed that " the chief end of man is to glorify God and 
enjoy him forever " did not lightly put on record their creed as to the 
object of the state and the purpose for which governments are insti- 
tuted among men. They knew that to add a political sanction to 
religious or moral duty, or to enlist the forces of the state for its 
performance, is impossible, without trenching upon that liberty of 
conscience which they valued even more than their political riglits. 

Burke, in his famous delineation of the character of the colonists 
in his great speech on conciliation with America, mentions as among 
the marvels of history the formation of voluntary government b}' the 
people when the ancient government of Massachusetts was abro- 
gated by Great Britain. That voluntary government, obeyed, as 
Lord Dunmore said of that in Virginia, " infinitely better than the 
ancient ever was in its most fortunate periods," was largely the 
work of Samuel Adams. 

His respect for law and horror for lawless violence were remarka- 
ble in the leader of a revolution. When the mob attacked the house 
of Hutchinson he declared he would rather have lost his right hand. 
It was through his influence that Quincy and John Adams defended 
Captain Preston, and the soldiers who had fired on the people, and 
secured their acquittal. He restrained the impatience of the people, 
waiting patiently for eight years till the time should come when his 
opponents should be put clearly in the wrong by first resorting to 
force. 

He had a marvellous personal magnetism which few men could 



1877.] SENATE— No. 3. iH 

resist, by which he attracted many brilliant and able men to the 
cause of his country. John Adams declares in his diar3' that " to my 
certain knowledge, from 1758 to 1775, that is, for seventeen years 
he made it his constant rule to watch the rise of every brilliant 
genius, to seek his acquaintance, to court his friendship, to cultivate 
his natural feelings in favor of his native country, to warn him 
against the hostile designs of Great Britain." He gives us a few 
names out of many thus brought to the cause of America, — Hancock, 
Warren, and Quincy. To these names he might have added his 
own, as abundant passages in his diary bear witness. 

Samuel Adams seems to have been a man without a selfish personal 
desire. You cannot trace in him the slightest evidence of the passions 
that so commonly beset the path of men in public life. The love of 
fame, the love of money, the love of pleasure, the love of ease, the 
love of power, the love of office, were alike without influence on that 
heart in which the love of liberty burned with a perpetual flame. 
The authorship of man}' of his ablest papers I'emained unknown till 
long after he died. The agents of the king more than once tried to 
tempt him with monej' or office. Most of his companions in the 
public service found means to gain competent fortunes by their own 
industry. Adams once declared that a guinea never glistened in his 
eyes. But for a small inheritance received late in life from his son, 
he must have been supported in his old age by charit}- and buried at 
the public charge. His only relaxation from his unrepaid public 
cares was in conversation, especially with little children, of whose 
society he was passionately fond, and sometimes in listening to or 
joining in sacred music, in which he especially delighted. 

The judgment of historians, the voice of the people, the praises of 
friends, the anger of enemies, bear concurrent witness to the great 
qualities of Samuel Adams. 

Bancroft calls him " the Chief of the Revolution." He says, "His 
vigorous, manly will resembled in its tenacity well-tempered steel 
which may ply a little but will not break." 

James Grahame says, " Samuel Adams was one of the most per- 
fect models of disinterested patriotism, and of republican genius and 
character, in all its austerity and simplicity, that any age or country 
has ever produced." 

Jeflerson called him " the Palinurus of the Revolution." He 
declared " he was truly a great man, wise in counsel, fertile in his 
resources, immovable in his purposes, and had, I think, a greater 
share than any other member in advising and directing our meas- 
ures in the northern war. I always considered him more than any 
other man the fountain of our important measures." 

Patrick Henry writes from Williamsburg, when Virginia was 



48 MEMORIAL STATUES. [Jan. 

about to frame her constitution, " Would to God you and your 
Samuel Adams were here." 

James Warren said he was " the man who had the greatest hand 
in the greatest revolution in the world." 

John Adams exhausts the language of eulogy in his praise : " He 
has the most thorough understanding of liberty and her resources in 
the temper and character of the people. He was born and tempered 
a wedge of steel." 

Stephen Say re calls him " the Father of America." 

Josiah Quincy says, " Many in England esteem him the first poli- 
tician in the world." 

A distinguished clergyman of his time calls him " one of Plutarch's 
men." 

Hutchinson, the tory governor, calls him " the all in all," " the 
great incendiary leader of Boston." When the ministry wrote to 
Hutchinson, " Why has not Mr. Adams been taken off from his 
opposition by an office?" he replied, " Such is the obstinacy and 
inflexible disposition of the man that he never would be conciliated 
by any office or gift whatever." When Hutchinson went back to 
England he was received to an audience by King George in his 
closet, where king and governor vied with each other in denuncia- 
tion of Sam. Adams. 

Galloway, the Philadelphia tory, declared in his examination before 
the House of Commons that " the lower ranks in Philadelphia were 
governed in a great degree by Mr. Adams." 

Gage, in June, 1775, excepts from the general offer of pardon 
" Samuel Adams and John Hancock, whose offences are of too 
flagitious a nature to admit of any other consideration than that 
of condign punishment." 

And so, Mr. Speaker, it has come to pass that, in the centennial 
year, Massachusetts brings the first and last of her great Puritans to 
represent her in the nation's gallery of heroes and patriots. Two 
hundred and forty-six years have gone by since John Winthrop 
landed at Salem. It is a hundred years since Samuel Adams set 
his name at Philadelphia to the charter of that independence which 
it had been the great purpose of his life to accomplish. Their 
characters, public and private, have been the subject of an intense 
historic scrutiny, both hostile and friendly. But the State, not, we 
hope, having failed to learn whatever new lessons these centuries 
have brought, still adopts them as the best she has to offer. 

I do not use the word Puritan in a restricted sense. I do not 
mean the bigots or zealots who were the caricature of their genera- 
tion. I do not discuss the place in history of the men of the English 
commonwealth. Whether the hypocritical buffoon of Hudibras or 



1877.] SENATE— No. 3. 49 

the religions enthusiast of Maeaulay be the type of that generation 
of Englishmen before whom Eiuope trembles, we do not need to 
inquire. I use the word in a large sense, as comprehending the men 
who led the emigration, made up the bulk of the numbers, estab- 
lished the institutions of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Plymouth, 
and administered tlieir affairs as self-governing republics in all but 
name for more than a century and a half. 

Tlu'ougli the vast spaces of human history there have resounded 
but a few heroic strains. Unless the judgment of those writers who 
have best conceived and pictured heroism — Milton, Burke, Carlyle, 
Froude — be at fault, among these there has been none loftier than 
the Puritanism of New England. The impress which a man makes 
upon mankind depends upon what he believes, what he loves, what 
are his qualities of intellect and of temper. You must consider all 
these to form a just estimate of the great generations with wdiich we 
are dealing. The Puritan loved liberty, religious and civil ; he loved 
home and family and friends and country with a love never sur- 
passed ; and lie loved God. He did not love pleasure or luxur}' or 
mirth. He dwelt with the delight of absolute certaint}' on the 
anticipation of a life be^'ond the grave. His intellect was fit for 
exact ethical discussion, clear in seeing general truths, active, unrest- 
ing, fond of inquiry and debate, but penetrated and restrained by a 
shrewd common-sense. He saw with absolute clearness the true 
boundary which separates liberty and authority in the state. He 
had a genius for making constitutions and statutes. He had a 
tenacity' of purpose, a loftj- and inflexible courage, an unbending 
will, which never quailed or flinched before human antagonist, or 
before exile, torture, or death. The Puritan was a thorough gentle- 
man, of digniiled, noble, statel}' bearing, as becomes men who bear 
weight}- responsibilities, deal with the greatest interests, and medi- 
tate on the loftiest themes. Read John Winthrop's definition of 
civil liberty, or his reasons for settling in New P^ngland, and judge 
of the temper of those men, who, of free choice, made him twelve 
times their governor. 

The Puritan believed that the law of God is the rule of life for 
states as for men. He believed in the independence of the individual 
conscience, and in self-government according to the precedents of 
English liberty, because he believed that both were according to the 
will of God. " It is the glor\- of the British constitution," said 
- Samuel Adams, " that it hath its foundation in the law of God." 
*' The magistrate is the servant," said John Adams, " not of his 
own desires, not even of the people, but of his God." He derived 
the knowledge of that will from a literal interpretation of Scripture, 
which he thought furnished precepts or examples for every occa- 
7 



50 MEMORIAL STATUES. [Jan. 

sion. Yet it is -wonderful how soon the common-sense of the Puri- 
tan wrought out the principles of sound administration, and freed 
him from tlie errors into which other men fell. He interpreted liter- 
ally the divine command, " Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." 
Yet the witchcraft delusion, disgrace of all Christian nations, never 
reached Plymouth or Connecticut, and touched Massachusetts but 
lightly. In England, from 1600 to 1680, 40,000 persons were put 
to death as witches, and in Scotland nearl}' as many. On the con- 
tinent of Europe the victims were murdered by hundreds of thou- 
sands. In Massachusetts the number never reached a score. The 
little Swiss cit}' of Geneva put to death five hundred persons for this 
crime in a single year. A child of nine 3ears old was executed for 
witchcraft in Huntingdon, England, in 1719. The laws against 
witchcraft remained in force in England till 1736, and in Scotland 
till 1738, fifty years after the time, when, first of all mankind, Mas- 
sachusetts repented of the delusion, the opinion of her whole people 
being uttered in the ever-memorable confession of Sewall, the Puri- 
tan chief justice. They had sacrificed almost everything else that 
man values to enjoy the worship of God after their own fashion. 
Yet they were among the first of mankind to establish comi)lete 
religious toleration. I have heard the Puritans of New England 
taunted for religious bigotry by the representatives of States who, 
as late as 1741, put men to death for the crime of being Catholics. 

The Puritan believed in a future life, where just men were to 
enjoy immortality with those whom they had loved here; and this 
belief was his comfort and support in all the sorrow and suffering 
which he had encountered. But he believed also in the coming of 
God's kingdom here. He had a firm faith that the state he had 
builded was to continue and grow, a community of men living 
tof^ether in the practice of virtue, in the worship of God, in the pur- 
suit of truth. It has been said of each of two great Puritan leaders, 
" Hope shone like a fiery pillar in him when it had gone out in all 
others. His mind is firmly fixed on the future ; his face is radient 
with the sunrise he intently watches." 

Lastly, the Puritan believed in the law of righteous retribution in 
the affairs of nations. No departure from God's law of absolute 
justice, of absolute honesty, of absolute righteousness, could escape, 
so it seemed to him, its certain and terrible punishment. The 
oppressor who deprived the poorest or weakest of mankind of the 
equal right with which God had endowed him, the promise-breaker 
who juggled with public obligation, the man who gained power by 
violence or fraud, brought down, as he believed, the vengeance of 
God upon himself and upon his children, and upon the nation which 
permitted him, to the third and fourth generation. 



1877.] SENATE— No. 3. 51 

Mr. Speaker, tlic State that tlie Puritan planted has opened hor 
gates to men of other lineage and of other creed. It may be that in 
the coming centuries his descendants are to yield to another race 
the dominion of his beloved New P^ngland, and that only in gentler 
climes, and on the shores of a more pacific sea, men will delight to 
remember that their fathers were of the company of Winthrop, or sat 
in counsel with Adams. But the title of the Puritan to remembrance 
will not depend upon localit3'. In that mightier national life, drawn 
from so many sources, — of many, one ; of many States, one nation ; 
of many races, one people ; of many creeds, one faith, — the elements 
he has contributed are elements of perpetual power : his courage ; 
his constanc}' ; his belief in God ; his reverence for law ; his love of 
liberty ; his serene and lofty hope. [Applause.] 

Remarks of Hon. W. W. "Warrex of Massachusetts. 

Mr. Warren. Massachusetts presents to the United States the 
statues of two of her representative men. She has selected for her 
heroes no brilliant but erratic genius, — general, orator, or poet, for a 
time the wonder of mankind, — but two men, each of whom owes his 
fame to the unselfish devotion of a lifetime to the cause in which his 
youth embarked. Not that thej' were either of them common men. 
Both were born leaders. They were men of unusual firmness and 
persistenc}- ; both men who scorned to be turned aside from the work 
to which they had dedicated their lives by any thought of personal 
gain, or office, or honor. But their right of leadership was built 
upon the fact that in themselves they embodied and illustrated the 
most powerful moving sentiments of the time in which they each of 
' them lived. 

We must leave out of view, when we would ascertain what, at a 
given epoch, is the most powerful influence that is operating to 
shape or transform the political or religious life of a country, all 
that large class — the majority, in fact, of its people — who give no 
time to thought, and readilj- subscribe to whatever dogmas in 
politics or religion ma}' be current, so long as the trade in silks or 
woollens, in corn or cotton, is active and remunerative. Such are 
not the men whose acts and whose will overturn empires, reform 
religions, and lead mankind in new paths of progress. Such are not 
the men who are troubled about the shortcomings of the dominant 
church, or who tremble at the first insidious attacks made by power 
upon liberty. But we who are of English stock may make it our 
boast that in each succeeding age a large bod}' of the people, in all 
classes in society, have acknowledged the duty they owed to the 
church and to the state, to keep the first pure and the second true 
to the great charter of liberties. 



52 INIEMORIAL STATUES. [Jan. 

The leaders of thought, and afterward in action, mnst clear]}- per- 
ceive the danger to be overcome, whether it arises from the perver- 
sity of those intrusted with power, or the indilference of the people ; 
must devise the remedy, and combine and marshal the forces neces- 
sar}' to uproot the prevailing wrong, and create or renew correct 
opinions and practices in religion or politics. 

We need not be reminded that from the time when John Winthrop 
attained his manhood, down to the day of his death, one strong 
purpose animated and controlled the serious and solid men of Eng- 
land. I do full justice to the manly and chivalrous devotion of the 
Cavaliers to the throne, to the zeal and love of the Churchmen for the 
established religion. But the men who beheaded a Strafford, who 
overthrew a Laud, who conquered a monarch and established two 
commonwealths : one at home, ill-conditioned and short-lived, the 
other, esto perpetua, on these shores, were the men that impressed 
themselves on their age, and have left their impress upon all future 
generations. They were the men who saw and believed that their 
liberties, civil and religious, were in danger ; who knew no duty but 
in attempting to recover their rights. In the mind and character of 
some, the religious element predominated ; in others, the determina- 
tion to recover the ancient rights and privileges of the British sub- 
ject was the ruling motive. But among all who were active on the 
side of the people in the stirring events of that time, both motives 
combined. 

I know how unsafe it is to generalize on any historical subject. 
"What is gained in point and effect is lost in accuracy. But it is 
not too much to assert that the revolution against the kingl}' power 
owed its commencement to those who, while sufficiently religious, 
yet felt most keenl}' the wrong done by the king to the civil and 
political rights of the subject ; while, on the other hand, the found- 
ing of the Massachusetts Commonwealth was due to those who, not 
unmindful of the danger to political liberty, were impelled primarily 
by their belief that their foremost duty was to bring their lives into 
absolute subjection to the will of God. The latter subordinated 
their duty to the state, yes, and the state itself, to what they con- 
ceived to be the law of God. The former had, from education, from 
family, and from tradition, the almost superstitious veneration for 
what was termed the constitutional rights of Englishmen, which 
made them start at an}' infraction of the provisions of that con- 
stitution, and eventually take arms in defence of its integrit}'. 
And it is a singular fact that when the revolution against the power 
of the king, commenced by the friends of civil liberty, was well-nigh 
failing, it owed its revival and ultimate success to the strength that 
was imparted to it by those whose ruling motive was the religious one. 



1877.] SENATE— No. 3. 53 

For it was Cromwell and Ireton, and the men who prepared for tlio 
fight by prayer, who proved invincible to all tlie dash and impetu- 
osity of Riii)ert and his squadrons. On the other hand, — I trust it 
is not a fanciful comparison, — our colon}', founded by John Win- 
throp, and for over a century sustained b}^ the influence of him, and 
men like him, who would use the state itself only as a means to 
glorify God, and make all men keep his commandments, never 
reached its full stature as a perfect commonwealth until new 
encroachments upon political rights caused the descendants of the 
Puritans to turn their whole attention to the preservation of their 
liberties. Then, as John Winthrop, the representative man of his 
day, was chosen b}' his i)eculiar fitness to lead a devoted band to 
build up the church in the wilderness, so Samuel Adams, equally 
the representative of the men of his time, was at once recognized as 
the one man fitted to lead in the work of the new revolution against 
royal aggression. 

It derogates nothing from the merit of Winthrop or Adams that 
each was the product of the time in which he lived. It rather 
heightens their claim to the gratitude and reverent regard of their 
contemporaries and of posterit}' that they possessed the clearness of 
vision to understand and the forgetfulness of self and firmness of 
purpose to carr}' into execution the best if not the only measures 
which would secure in the earlier time the religious independence 
and in the later period tlie civil and political freedom which of right 
belonged to all freeborn Englishmen. 

As in the mother country the love of freedom needed the aid of 
religious zeal before it could succeed in its struggle against power, 
so on the other hand in the New England its religious zeal and con- 
stanc}' needed the liberalizing aid of the spirit of democracy in 
order that full freedom of conscience in things religious might be 
guaranteed to all men. And so Massachusetts regards herself 
to-day as built upon the two foundations of religion and of liberty. 
In her belief, one cannot exist apart from the other. Religion is the 
main reliance to prevent liberty from degenerating into license. A 
devotion to libert}' and the equal rights of all will alone guarantee 
that toleration without which religion itself becomes a matter of 
form or an engine of oppression. 

It is most fitting, then, that Massachusetts should present to the 
United States the statues of Winthrop and of Samuel Adams. The 
one is the true type of the religious element, — controlling but never 
dwarfing the love of freedom ; the other, the full embodiment of 
the spirit of liberty, — active, zealous, yet ahva3-s relying on the 
sanction of the divine law ; both together represent the Common- 



54 MEMORIAL STATUES. [Jan. 

wealth itself, the perfect result of the full blending of religion and 
liberty, working in harmon}' in the cause of human progress. 

It is not for mo to present to j'ou an analj'sis of the characteris- 
tics of the Puritans, or to show in what manner and b}' the posses- 
sion of Avhat qualities they have exerted so great an influence upon 
the fortunes of our country. If I desired I could add nothing to 
the completeness of the picture drawn by ni}' colleague who has 
preceded me. I should only mar the beaut}' and symraetr}^ of his 
\j portraiture were I to add so much as a single touch. Let me rather 
sa}', that whatever may have been the rivalries between the Puritans 
and Pilgrims, or between the early settlers of New England and 
those of more southern colonies, the differences between them bear 
no comparison to the points of similarity. Wherever we turn, in 
the history of Massachusetts or Virginia, we shall find all through 
its pages the evidence that the people of both States descended from 
a common stock ; that both made it their chief boast that the ancient 
rights and privileges of Englishmen were theirs ; that when freedom 
was assailed both sprang with equal alacrity to its defence ; that, 
when both had shaken off the shackles of colonial dependence and 
came to adopt a declaration of rights and a frame of government 
suited to a free people, the constitutions of Massachusetts and of 
Virginia differed in no essential particular ; and that in the task of 
establishing the Federal Union for the common defence against for- 
I, eign enemies and the common security against domestic violence, 
while at the same time the States and the people were guaranteed 
the rights essential to the preservation of libert}', Samuel Adams of 
Massachusetts and Thomas Jefferson of Virginia found themselves 
in perfect accord. 

In the next place I do not dwell upon the contrasts that ma}- be 
discovered between the colonists of 1G30 and the revolutionists of 
1775. There was never a time when religious zeal was powerful 
enough in the colony to cause the people or the magistrates to lose 
sight of the great bulwarks of civil freedom. The principles and 
forms of the common law were constantl}' followed. The Parlia- 
ment was supported in its contest with the king. And from first to 
last there was manifested a firm determination to insist on all the 
rights and the substantial independence conferred b}- the original 
charter of the compau}'. 

On the other hand, at the time of the Revolution and long after, 
the power and the influence of the clergy were felt in state as well 
as church, and the habit of referring to the words of Scripture as 
authorit}^ in things temporal as well as in things spiritual was almost 
universal. For two centuries at least after the first settlement of 
Boston, the building up of the church and the preservation of their 



1877.] SENATE— No. 3. 55 

liberties were the prime motives that inspired the conduct of the 
men of Massachusetts. At one time one motive predominated, at 
another the other, but both were alwa3-s active. 

I have said that these men owe their fame not to an}- single ])rill- 
iant exploit. It is, on the other hand, only by the well-rounded 
work of a lifetime that they so truly represent two centuries of 
Massachusetts Instor}^ But not only because the}' best illustrate 
the times in whicli they lived, but also because they most clearly fore- 
saw what was needed in the future of their country, it is proper that 
their statues should have an honorable place among those contrib- 
uted to our National Gallery. In these days, when otlice is without 
honor, when the possession of wealth is almost of itself a ground of 
suspicion against its possessor, and when culture instead of confer- 
ring strength is too often only a badge of inethciency, one can but 
be struck by the contrast which the first and second centuries of our 
history present to the present time. 

In John Winthrop were united social station, official rank, refined 
culture, and, until late in life, a sufficient fortune. Adams was un- 
doubtedly a man most democratic in his tendencies ; yet in his day 
due respect was rendered to the magistrates ; honor to the man of 
learning and wealth was esteemed as the fair reward of honest and 
patient endeavor. In these respects Winthrop and Adams but re- 
flect the habits of their own times. But a public man's influence 
upon posterity depends upon what he has thought out and wisely 
said in the way of solving the political, religious, or social problems 
with which the future must deal. 

In Winthrop's time it was hoped and believed that the colonial 
charter contained a sufficient guarantee for the substantial independ- 
ence of the colony. It was not then deemed either desirable or 
practicable to bring about a complete separation from the mother 
country ; yet every step taken by Winthrop and his contemporaries 
was preparatory to the actual and complete independence which was 
to follow. Before his death, Winthrop witnessed the entire success 
of his enterprise, and he had been mainly instrumental in giving 
such a foundation and such a direction to the public sentiment of the 
people as Avould keep the rising state always in the path which he 
had marked out for it when he determined on removing to the New 
World. 

Adams, when he came upon the stage, had another century of the 
experience of England and the colony on which to draw for instruc- 
tion. He could also learn from the development of the country, and 
from its constant disputes with the home government, what its future 
must be, and what the basis on which government here must rest. 
His views were always singularly clear, and those of his earlier 



J 



56 MEiMORIAL STATUES. [Jan. 

3'ears required little modification even in his old age. Hear him, at 
the age of twent3'-six, discussing what is true lo^'alt}' : — 

" The true object of loj-alty is a good, legal constitution, which, as it 
condemns every instance of oppression and lawless power, derives a cer- 
tain remedy to the sufferer by allowing him to remonstrate his griev- 
ances, and pointing out methods of relief when the gentle art§ of persua- 
sion have lost their efficacy. Whoever, therefore, insinuates notions of 
government contrary to the Constitution, or in any degree winks at any 
measure to suppress or even to weaken it, is not a loyal man. Whoever 
acquaints us that we have no right to examine into the conduct of those 
who, though they derive their power from us to serve the common inter- 
ests, made use of it to impoverish and ruin us, is, in a degree, a rebel — to 
the undoubted rights and liberties of the people." 

This was in 1748. Twenty years later, when troops were sta- 
tioned in Boston, and their removal was demanded by the citizens, 
Adams thus wrote to the " Boston Gazette" : — 

" Where military power is introduced, military maxims are propagated 
and adopted which are inconsistent with, and must soon eradicate, every 
idea of civil government. Do we not already find some persons weak 
enough to believe that an officer is obliged to obey the order of his supe- 
rior, though it be even against the law? Aud let any one consider 
whether this doctrine does not directly lead even to the setting up of that 
officer, whoever he may be, as a tyrant?" 

I may not go on with quotations. 

For over a quarter of a century after this he continued in public 
life, and so long he continued to repeat and enforce his arguments 
in faA'or of a constitutional government, based upon universal liberty, 
and secured by the safeguards of religion and popular education. 

So Massachusetts, in presenting these statues, presents herself 
again to the United States. She claims for her people that, recog- 
nizing the merits of these two men, she recognizes the truths for 
the sake of which they spent their lives, and she promises for herself 
that she will not fail in religiously performing eveiy constitutional 
dut}'. Whenever an attempt shall be made to subvert our institu- 
tions, whether b}' the reckless employment of force or b}' a resort to 
the subtler method of deception and fraud practised on the people, 
Massachusetts must forget her traditions and her memories if she 
fails to be the first in the field to resist all illegal conduct and pro- 
tect the rights of her citizens. 

She has placed these statues on either side of the entrance to that 
hall where in a later da}' another Adams fell at his post of duty, so 
that we, who in these busy and perhaps most critical times are sent 
here to do what in us lies to preserve and transmit unimpaired that 
constitutional libert}' which is our inheritance, must, in going out 



1877.] SENATE— No. 3. 57 

from this hall after our daily service, pass between the silent forms 
of Wintlirop and of Adams. 

Whatever son of Massachusetts can leave this hall with the con- 
sciousness that in act or vote or speech he has been true to the 
ancient renown of his State, has resisted every attempt to subvert 
the principles on which the permanence of our liberties depends, has 
religiously held his allegiance to truth and firmly opposed all false- 
hood and fraud and trickery, has not forgotten his country in his 
zeal for party, nor forfeited his self-respect and the respect of good 
men by his desire for office and personal gain ; finally, who has imi- 
tated the life and conduct of these two men, whose example we offer 
to the imitation of all lovers of free government, may hold his head 
erect, and look full in the face those almost speaking statues, and 
feel as if a blessing were resting upon his pathway. 

But if at an}^ time any recreant son of the old Commonwealth 
should dare to use his position here to undermine the institutions of 
his country, to stifle the voice of a free people through the instru- 
mentality of fraud or force, or both combined, should use his office 
for personal gain, or to secure a party triumph at the sacrifice of 
truth and of justice, then I fancy I see a man, as he passes out of 
yonder portal, crouching between the stately images at which he 
dares not look, and as if expecting the marble lips to part and utter 
the curse which he so well would merit. [Applause.] 

Mr. Speaker, up to this day, as the virtues and merits of John 
Winthrop and Samuel Adams have never been unrecognized, so in 
each generation since his death some descendant of Winthrop and 
for four generations some kinsman of Adams has filled an honorable 
place in the service of the State. Far distant be the dav when any 
future generation in the old Commonwealth shall be deprived of the 
service of a AYinthrop or an Adams. Far distant be the day when 
there shall be wanting man}-, many descendants of the earlj- Puri- 
tans who will be prompt to do honor to the memory and imitate the 
unselfish devotion to duty of John Winthrop and Samuel Adams. 
[Applause.] 

Remarks of Hon. James A. Garfield, of Onio. 
Mr. Garfield. Mr. Speaker, I regret that illness has made it 
impossible for me to keep the promise which I made a few daj-s since 
to offer some reflections appropriate to this ver}' interesting occasion. 
But I cannot let the moment pass without expressing my great sat- 
isfaction with the fitting and instructive choice which the State of 
Massachusetts has made, and the manner in which her representa- 
tives have discharged their duty in presenting these beautiful works 
of art to the Congress of the nation. 



58 MEMORIAL STATUES. [Jan. 

As from time to time our venerable and beautiful hall has been 
peopled with statues of the elect of the States, it has seemed to me 
that a third house was being organized within the walls of the Capi- 
tol, — a house whose members have received their high credentials at 
the hands of history, and whose term of office will outlast the ages. 
Year by j'car we see the circle of its immortal membership enlarg- 
ing ; year by year we see the elect of their countrj', in eloquent 
silence, taking the places in this American Pantheon, bringing 
within its sacred circle the wealth of those immortal memories 
which made their lives illustrious ; year b}' year this august assem- 
bly is teacliing a deeper and grander lesson to all who serve their 
brief hour in these more ephemeral houses of Congress. And now 
two places of great honor liavc just been most nobh' filled. 

I can well understand how the State of Massachusetts, embar- 
rassed by her wealth of historic glor}', found it difficult to make the 
selection. And while the distinguished gentleman from Massachu- 
setts [Mr. Hoar] was so fittingl}- honoring his State by portraying 
that happy embarrassment, I was reflecting that the sister State of 
Virginia will encounter, if possible, a still greater difficult}', when 
she comes to make the selection of her immortals. One name I 
venture to hope she will not select ; a name too great for the glory 
of an}^ one State. I trust she will allow us to claim Washington as 
belonging to all the States for all time. But if she should pass over 
the great distance that separates "Washington from all others, I can 
hardl}' imagine how slie will make her choice from her crowded roll. 
But I have no doubt that she will be able to present two who will 
represent the great phases of her history as happil}- and worthily as 
Massachusetts is represented in the choice she has to-da}- announced. 
It is difficult to imagine a happier combination of great and benefi- 
cent forces than will be presented b}' the representative heroes of 
these two great States. 

Virginia and Massachusetts were the two focal centres from which 
sprang the life-forces of this Republic. They were in many ways 
complements of each other, each supplying what the other lacked, 
and both uniting to endow the Republic with its noblest and most 
enduring qualities. 

To-da}' the House has listened with the deepest interest to the 
statement of those elements of priceless value contributed b}' the 
State of Massachusetts. We have been instructed b}' the clear and 
masterly analysis of the spirit and character of that Puritan civili- 
zation so fully embodied in the lives of Winthrop and Adams. I 
will venture to add, that, notwithstanding all the neglect and con- 
tempt with which England regarded her Puritans two hundred 
years ago, the tendency of thought in modern England is to do 



1877.] SENATE— No. 3. 59 

justice to that great force that created the Commonwealth, and 
finall}' made the British islands a land of liberty and law. Even 
the great historian Hume was compelled reluctantly to declare that — 

" The precious spark of liberty had been kindled and was preserved by 
the Puritans alone ; and it was to this sect that the English owe the whole 
freedom of their constitution." 

What higher praise can posterity bestow upon any people than to 
make such a confession? Having done so much to save liberty 
alive in the mother countr}', the Puritans planted upon the shores of 
this New World that remarkable civilization whose growth is the 
greatness and glory of our Republic. 

Indeed, before Winthrop and his company landed at Salem, the 
Pilgrims were^ laying the foundations of civil libertj'. While the 
Mayflower was passing Cape Cod, and seeking an anchorage in the 
midst of the storm, her brave passengers sat down in the little 
cabin and drafted and signed a covenant which contains the germ of 
American libert}-. How familiar to the American habit of mind are 
these declarations of the Pilgrim covenant of 1G20 : — 

"That no act, imposition, law or ordinance be made or imposed upon 
us at present or to come but such as has been or shall be enacted by the 
consent of the body of freemen or associates, or their representatives 
legally assembled." 

The New England town was the model, the primary cell from 
which our Republic was "evolved. The town-meeting was the germ 
of all the parliamentary life and habits of Americans. 

John Winthrop brought with him the more formal organization of 
New England society, and in his long and useful life did more than 
perhaps any other to direct and strengthen its growth. 

Nothing, therefore, would be more fitting than that Massachusetts 
should place in our Memorial Hall the statue of the first of the 
Puritans, representing him at the moment when he was stepping on 
shore from the ship that brought him from England, and bearing 
with him the charter of that first political society which laid the 
foundations of our country, and that near him should stand that 
Puritan embodiment of the logic of the Revolution, Samuel Adams. 
I am glad to see this decisive, though tardy, acknowledgment of his 
great and signal services to America. I doubt if any man equalled 
Samuel Adams in formulating and uttering the fierce, clear, and 
inexorable logic of the Revolution. With our present habits of 
thought, wc can hardly realize how great were the obstacles to over- 
come. Not the least was the religious belief of the fathers,— that 



60 MEMORIAL STATUES. [Jan. 

allegiance to rulers was obedience to God. The thirteenth chapter 
of Romans was to man}' minds a barrier against revolution stronger 
than the battalions of George III. : — 

" Let eveiy soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no 
power but of God : the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever 
therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God." 

And it was not until the people of that religious age were led to 
see that they might obey God, and still establish liberty in spite of 
kingly despotism, that they were willing to engage in war against 
one who called himself " king by the grace of God." The men who 
pointed out the pathway to freedom by the light of religion as well 
as of law, were the foremost promoters of American independence. 
' And of these, Adams was unquestionably^ chief. 
\^. It must not be forgotten that while Samuel Adams was writing 
the great argument of liberty in Boston, almost at the same time 
Patrick Henry was formulating the same doctrines in Virginia. It 
is one of the grandest facts of that grand time that the Colonies 
were thus brought b}^ an almost universal consent to tread the same 
pathways and reach the same great conclusions. 

But most remarkable of all is the fact that throughout all that 
period, filled as it was with the revolutionary spirit, the great men 
that guided the storm exhibited the most wonderful power of self- 
restraint. If I were to-day to state the single quality that appears 
to me most admirable among the fathers of the Revolution, I should 
say it was this : that in all the passions of war, waged against a per- 
fidious enemy from beyond the sea, aided by a savage enemy on our 
own shores, our fathers exhibited so wonderful a restraint, so great a 
care to observe the forms of law, to protect the rights of the minor- 
ity, to preserve all those great rights that have come down to them 
from the common law, so that when they had achieved their inde- 
pendence, they were still a law-abiding people. 

In that fiery meeting in the Old South Church, after the Boston 
massacre, when, as the gentleman from Massachusetts has said, 
three thousand voices almost lifted the roof from the church in de- 
manding the removal of the regiment, it is noted by the historian 
that there was one solitary sturdy nay in the vast assemblage, and 
Samuel Adams scrupulously recorded the fact that there was one 
dissentient. It would have beena mortal offence against his notions 
of justice and good order if that one dissentient had not had his 
place in the record. And after the regiments had been removed, 
and after the demands had been acceded to, that the soldiers who 
had fired upon citizens should be delivered over to the civil authori- 
ties to be dealt with according to law, Adams was the first man to 



1877.] SENATE— No. 3. 61 

insist and demand that the best legal talent in the colony should be 
put forward to defend these murderers, and John Adams and Josiah 
Quincy were detailed for the purpose of defending them. Men were 
detailed whose hearts and souls were on fire with love for the popu- 
lar cause ; but the men of Massachusetts would have despised these 
two advocates if they had not given their whole strength to the 
defence of the soldiers. 

Mr. Speaker, this great lesson of self-restraint is taught in the 
whole history of the Revolution ; and it is this lesson that to-dav, 
more, perhaps, than any we have seen, we ought to take most to 
heart. Let us seek liberty and peace, under the law, and, following 
the pathway of our fathers, preserve the legacy they have committed 
to our keeping. 

The question being taken, the Resolutions of the Senate were 
unanimously concurred in. 



